Home is Where the Heart is
by A Deed Without a Name
Summary: It was wrong. His dad told him that when he was nineteen, drummed it into him. "I don't want to see you and your brother doing anything like this ever again. Understand, Sammy?" Sam understood. And he hasn't even seen Dean since...but now Dad's missing, and Dean's back, and Sam can't help the way he feels. AU S1, Graphic Wincest/Weecest, established Wincest relationship.
1. Chapter 1

**This is a multichapter story, and it is most definitely not my usual fair.**

**A very, ****_very _****grateful nod here to decemberdove ( u/4543008/), without whom this story most definitely wouldn't exist.**

**As always, please review, and keep in mind while doing so...the storyline won't always be so shamefully close to canon.**

* * *

A window being opened.

The tiny sound that that made - the soft hiss of wood and glass sliding against each other-was what jerked Sam out of sleep, heart racing and adrenaline pouring into his bloodstream. He opened his eyes without moving a muscle, his instincts standing in for conscious thought while the more important parts of his brain woke up and making him keep his breathing even and his body completely still. After a second or two, he grimaced. Feeling the urge to draw his arms in to protect his stomach, he swiftly crushed it, closing his eyes and sighing deeply.

This was the third time this week that a small, random, totally normal household noise had woken him up in the middle of the night. The first time had been water dripping in the bathroom, the second a muffled, nearly-silent thud from the apartment above them. Stuff that didn't bother normal people when they were sleeping - _Stuff that doesn't bother Jess,_ he thought with a little flicker of affection as he felt her shift her position slightly behind him.

At least it was better than it had been two years ago. When he woke up several times a night, on edge, totally convinced that fangs were about to sink into his face. Or a superhumanly strong blow was about to knock him out of bed and slam him into a wall. Or fingertips were about to trail liquid fire down over his upper mouth while a hot mouth pressed against his neck and muscular legs wrapped tight around his long ones -

_No. Ugh. No, no, no._

He wasn't going to think about that. That was over.

With another sigh (quiet, so as not to wake Jess), Sam rolled over onto his back, looking up at the ceiling of their bedroom with half-closed eyes. Hands resting haphazardly on his chest and fingers twisted into the sheets, he tried to breathe evenly, tried to put himself back to sleep. He was capable of it, it just took awhile, as he knew all too well. He had to convince himself that no monsters were prowling around the apartment, and that everything was okay. He focused on familiar, reassuring noises: Jess's breathing, water gurgling softly through the pipes of the building, footsteps in the hallway. And he closed his eyes.

A second later, they flew open again.

Wait.

Footsteps in the hallway?

Sam sat up, swung his legs out of bed, and padded towards the bedroom doorway, all without waking Jess. His impressive height had been a real pain in the ass back when he was sixteen and it was brand-new, but he was used to it now, and could actually move pretty quietly, for a guy his size. It was a skill that he was grateful to have as he stalked through the apartment he shared with his girlfriend, trying to keep down the memories that doing this stirred up. If there actually was someone _(Or some_thing, maliciously whispered a little voice in the back of his mind) in here, he didn't want them to hear him before he found them. And if it was nothing, he most definitely did not want Jess to wake up and ask him why he was prowling around in the dark. That was a conversation he didn't ever plan on having.

But Sam's restless, vaguely self-conscious thoughts stilled when he saw something. _There._ A dark figure in the room, broad shoulders and close-cropped hair, made into a blurry silhouette by the darkness but still unmistakably human. And unmistakably male. He appeared to be meticulously looking over Sam and Jess's possessions, and Sam shook his head, silently moving across the room to wait for the guy to come to him.

_Oh, man, did you pick the wrong people to rob,_ he thought, kind of amused, but mostly just resigned. Determined to get some use out of the useless skills he'd spent his childhood honing and defend his home and his girlfriend.

He couldn't help feeling a tiny bit gratified that, for once, his instincts had actually been right.

The guy walked softly, moving around the room, occasionally stopping to look at something in the dark and getting steadily closer to Sam. He seemed to know how to move quietly - it was obvious in his movements, something unconscious, but he wasn't making any real effort to hide the sounds he was making. Probably figured that the college kids this apartment belonged to wouldn't wake up or even think that something like this could happen to them.

And now he was in range.

Sam lunged forward, adrenaline singing in his veins and some part of him relieved that the waiting was over and he could actually fight. He grabbed the intruder by the shoulder, intending to pull him down and shove a knee against his head to knock him out, but the guy's arm shot up and pushed his hand away. The movement turned into a punch, which Sam ducked away from without thinking. His body moved on autopilot; inside, he was more than a little surprised. This guy had really great reflexes.

_He actually knows how to fight._

He straightened up, hands flexing into fists.

_Weird, for a cat burglar...but it's okay. So do I._

Before Sam could react, he felt a hand on his arm, a ring pressing into his flesh. The guy swung him around, handling him pretty easily even though he was quite a bit shorter than Sam, and shoved him, towards the doorway of the room. Sam stumbled, caught himself, and aimed a powerful kick towards his opponent, forgetting for a second that his feet were bare and he wasn't wearing his usual heavy, thick-soled boots. Not like it mattered. The guy blocked his kick with one forearm, then shoved him back again, back into the kitchen. Before he could get his bearings, an elbow caught him in the face. He saw stars and tasted blood. He kicked again, but it went high, and missed by a mile when the guy ducked. He tried to hit him again, but Sam managed to block this blow with a quiet grunt of effort, chest shuddering with fatigue and real fear. He might actually get beaten here - might actually get killed. By a human.

He couldn't decide if that was ironic or just stupid.

He didn't get a lot of time to think about it, because he was suddenly shoved roughly to the floor, his opponent using all his weight to pin him down, gripping his neck with one hand and his wrists with the other. So he couldn't move or fight back. The guy was well-muscled, and so close that Sam could smell him. Leather, sweat, cheap alcohol, a familiar brand of cologne, an inexplicable hint of something almost like vanilla - a thousand faint, masculine scents all mixing together to make something that Sam's body recognized before his brain did. His breathing sped up, and so did his heartrate, sending blood shooting downwards as a pretty private part of him woke up in reaction.

_Oh, no._

The weight on top of him felt familiar now, pressing down in all the right spots. Maybe a little heavier, wider with muscle in the shoulders and chest and thighs than he remembered, a slightly more mature shape. But that could definitely happen in two years. Especially doing what he had to have been doing this whole time.

_Oh, God, no._

He even recognized the hands. Callused and scarred and strong enough to snap a werewolf's neck, but so warm, and holding him oh-so-gently...

_No. No no no no no -_

"Whoa. Easy, tiger." His voice was rough, horribly familiar, and obviously amused. Sam's chest heaved; he felt like he couldn't get enough oxygen.

"Dean?" His own voice was barely a whisper.

The guy on top of him laughed, low and husky, and that was enough to break Sam out of his horrified stupor. With every hair on his body standing at attention and his blood feeling like acid in his veins, he yanked his hands free and shoved Dean off of him with more force than he knew was strictly necessary. He scrambled away, disgust making him shake a little, and forced himself to his feet. Backing up a bit, he felt the countertop against the backs of his thighs and knew he couldn't go any further. When Dean stood, too, he held both hands up, palms out, in a universal "stay-the-hell-away" gesture.

"Don't touch me," he ordered with surprising ferocity, breathing hard.

"Okay, fine." Dean held up his hands, too, staying where he was. "That's your bubble." He gestured to the space around Sam, smirking a little. The expression was visible even in the dim light. "Got it."

Sam, very slowly, lowered his hands, when Dean showed no sign of coming towards him. He pushed one up through his sleep-matted hair, blinking a couple of times in an effort to clear his head. He could still feel Dean's hands on him, and he shuddered, trying to push that sensation away. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Well, I was looking for a beer..." Dean took a step forward, then stopped and rolled his eyes when Sam immediately tensed up. "Jeez. Think you might be taking this personal space kick just a little too far?"

"Just...stay away from me." He swallowed hard, all of his earlier confidence gone.

"Y'know, it's okay to let other people in." Dean put his hand over his heart and arranged his face into an over-the-top expression of concern. Sam, unamused, gritted his teeth.

"Seriously." He looked away, not wanting to make accidental eye contact even though he couldn't actually see Dean's eyes in the dark. "What the hell are you doing here, Dean?"

"Okay." The amusement vanishing suddenly, Dean stuffed his hands into the pockets of the jacket he was wearing. "All right." He sighed a little. "We gotta talk."

"I don't wanna talk to you," Sam said immediately, shaking his head a little, and immediately holding back a cringe because of how childish and petty that sounded. He hadn't thought for a second before saying it - being this close to Dean made his skin crawl and dredged up memories he'd really rather forget. He just wanted him out. Out of his apartment, out of his thoughts, out of his life. Like he had been for two years, before he just had to show up tonight and screw with everything Sam had here. He definitely didn't want to waste any time at all talking to him. He was already pretty sure he knew what he'd want to talk about, anyway.

Dean raised an eyebrow, the pale hair catching what little light there was in the apartment. "Well, what're you doing right now?"

Sam was about to reply when he heard bare feet padding against the floor, just a second before the light turned on. He automatically squinted as his eyes adjusted.

"Sam?"

He glanced towards the voice, seeing Jess standing in the doorway of the kitchen with her blonde hair all messed up from sleep and her expression confused. He was suddenly incredibly aware of how revealing the outfit that she slept in was, as Dean's gaze raked up and down her, practically burning away what little she was wearing. He felt a sudden flash of jealousy, but not concerning Jess.

_How many women like her did you bed while I was gone, Dean?_

He shoved that thought out of his head with as much mental force as he could.

"Jess," Sam started, doing his best to keep his tone calm. "Hey." He kept looking at her, making a point to keep Dean out of his field of vision. "Dean...this is my girlfriend. Jessica."

He looked over at Dean when he rocked back on his heels, and saw the perplexed expression on his face as he just kept taking Jess in. All of her, from her long legs to some of her...other assets. Sam could practically read his mind: _Wait. _Girl_friend?_

And...was he imagining it, or had actual _hurt_ flickered across his face when he introduced Jess as his girlfriend?

But it was gone now. Dean was wearing his crooked, cocky, "God's-gift-to-women-and-I-know-it" grin.

"Well," he said, gaze appreciative as he kept his eyes on Jess, "I definitely wasn't expecting you." The smile widened, and he held up his hands in a "kidding" gesture. "Not that I'm complaining, of course. You're just not my brother's usual type." He cast a sly glance at Sam, whose jaw tightened as he held himself rigid and aloof. He completely refused to rise to the bait.

Jess frowned a little, but didn't ask what he meant by that. Instead, she turned her attention back to Sam, asking, "Didn't you tell me your brother was Dean?"

That was pretty much all he had told her about his brother.

_Brother._ Just mentally connecting that word and everything it meant to Dean was enough to turn his stomach, bring on a wave of guilt and self-disgust that he only quelled out of pure necessity. He couldn't afford to get lost in feeling sorry for himself right now.

"Yeah." He nodded, reluctantly. "This is my - brother." If either Dean or Jess noticed the slight hitch in his voice, they didn't react to it.

"Nice to meet you." Dean walked over to stand by Sam, who tried to stiffen further and found that he couldn't, bare toes curling against the linoleum. He didn't want his brother anywhere near him, but he couldn't shove him away without having to explain that to Jess. And he would seriously consider killing himself as an acceptable alternative to explaining _that._ "Anyway, I gotta borrow your boyfriend here, talk about some private family business."

"No," Sam said immediately, pushing off of the counter and stalking over to put an arm around his girlfriend. Partly, it was to get away from Dean, all the guilt and pain and hatred that he dredged up. And, partly, it was to remind himself that he had Jess, he was hers, and let her slender, athletic build take his mind off his racing heart and the throbbing erection in his boxers.

Which - _Oh, God_ - he really, _really_ hoped no one but him had noticed.

"No," he repeated, shifting his weight a little self-consciously. "Whatever you want to say, you can say it in front of her."

"Well, if you're sure." Dean took a deep breath. "Dad hasn't been home in a few days."

_Dad._ Sam kept his face neutral._ I would think you'd be glad he's gone,_ he snapped inside his own head. _ I've seen the way he looks at you, and I know what he's thinking. It's the same way he used to look at me. We_ disgust_ him, both of us. But you especially, I think._

"Are you sure he didn't just run off without you?" he asked instead. It really wouldn't surprise him if their father had finally gotten sick of Dean, being around him and pretending to be oblivious. Maybe he couldn't look him in the eye anymore - like Sam hadn't been able to.

A muscle in Dean's jaw twitched, but other than that, he didn't react to the implication that John'd abandoned him. Sam felt a weird sort of disappointment.

"Dad's on a hunting trip," he clarified. "And he hasn't been home in a few days."

Internally, Sam sighed. He didn't want to admit it...but that changed everything. He couldn't wave Dean's concern off as childish or unfounded. As much as he didn't want to, as fresh as the memory of John's hate for him was, the man had raised him. And he hadn't thrown him out or hit him or anything when he found out what Sam had been doing. He had to at least hear Dean out - he owed their father that much. Besides. He probably wouldn't leave the apartment without a fight until Sam'd listened to what he had to say.

"Jess, excuse us," he said quietly. "We have to go outside."

Dean waited for him while he ducked back into the bedroom just long enough to pull on jeans and a hoodie and talk Jess into at least trying to go back to bed while he was gone. When he came back, Dean gave his outfit a once-over that seemed just a little too critical, then led the way out the front door and to the stairs. Sam made no effort to be quiet as they went down, knowing that the neighbors wouldn't be able to hear him; every time his boots hit a new step, they made a noise like a thunderclap. Dean was much quieter.

"You realize I'm not_ leaving_ with you," Sam said as they reached a landing. Dean glanced back at him over his shoulder.

"I wondered why you didn't pack anything," he said. "Guess I just figured all your stuff was useless now. I mean, you obviously don't own knives or guns or anything practical." He paused on the stairs below Sam, turning to smirk up at him. "Why else would you have tried to take down an armed prowler in your underwear?"

Sam chose to ignore that.

"I'll let you tell me why you think you needed to come out here and tell me all about Dad, but that's it," he said. When Dean didn't answer, he continued with, "I mean, come on. You can't just break in, middle of the night, and expect me to hit the road with you."

"You're not hearing me, Sammy - "

"Don't call me that."

That shut Dean up immediately, and Sam was surprised by the venom in his own voice. He sounded just as vicious as he had when he'd told Dean not to touch him, if not more so.

And now his heart was racing again. He shoved past his brother, trying to ignore the miniature lightning bolt of excitement that the nickname had sent zinging up his spine. He could practically feel hands resting heavily on his hips, spread over his chest and pulling him back against another warm, muscular body, tangled in the hair he didn't like to cut as someone gasped against his mouth between fevered kisses.

_Someone._ No way was he using names in these involuntary little fantasies.

"So you don't like it anymore?" Dean spoke up suddenly. Sam froze. "You _loved_ being called that, awhile back. Used to whimper and howl - "

Sam spun around, furiously meeting his brother's green gaze. "Shut up."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"I said, _shut up._ We're not gonna talk about any of..._that."_ Sam spit the last word out like it had been burning the inside of his mouth, turning away so he wouldn't have to look at him. "None of it should have ever happened, I wish more than anything that it _hadn't,_ and, as far as I'm concerned...it _didn't."_ He shook his head, anger dulling into pain and guilt, and, for some reason he couldn't fathom, he felt absolutely terrible. "Just let me forget about it, okay? That's what I want."

Dean stayed quiet and still for a couple seconds, his expression completely unreadable in the dim light of the stairwell and his eyes gleaming when Sam glanced at him. Finally, he spoke, his voice flat and utterly devoid of emotion.

"Okay," he said. "Let's just focus on finding Dad, then."


	2. Chapter 2

**First of all, let me say that I am sorry.**

**So, so sorry.**

**This chapter is not for the faint of heart, containing a flashback (something that will become a rather common occurrence, just let me warn you), things of a graphically sexual and downright Weecestuous nature, and nigh-unbearable cuteness.**

**If Weecest is not your thing, or if it is but you draw the line at a certain age, let me tell you that both characters are very young here...and you should probably just skip reading this and save us all a lot of trouble.**

**As always, please, please review, no matter your opinion.**

* * *

This wasn't the reunion Dean had been expecting.

Sure, he knew that Sam had been pissed when he ran off. Pissed at Dad, pissed at him (for whatever Godforsaken reason), pissed at, pretty much, the entire world. He remembered the screaming match, trying to get between his father and his younger brother to break them up like he usually did, and not being able to. There had been something..._different_ that time, even though the fight hadn't even been about anything important (to be honest, he didn't really remember what it even _had _been about), and Dean had been able to tell that something had finally _snapped _inside Sam. The second he grabbed his backpack and his coat and stalked out into the night, Dean knew that he wouldn't be coming home in a few hours with burning eyes and a need so desperate he might actually have to shove him off and get some air. Which was what he usually did when these sorts of things happened.

Dean just let him leave and didn't go after him, two years ago, because of the way that Dad kept looking between him and Sam, disgusted and disappointed but never saying a word about why he was feeling that way (he was grateful for that; his dad might hate him, but at least they were still on the same page when it came to protecting Sammy), and how quiet Sam'd gotten at the end, and the _look _he'd given him as he left. Shame, disgust, something that looked a lot like hate but just couldn't be. Dean could never believe that Sam hated him. Not after everything they'd done and said.

In the beginning, he had honestly just been waiting for a hospital to call one of Dad's phones and tell him that Sam was bleeding out or concussed or partially disemboweled in their emergency room. (Though, now, why he'd ever thought he would be hunting was beyond him.) Then they could go pick him up, and get him all better, and everything would be okay. Maybe they'd even get the chance to play 'doctor' while Dad was out, once Sam was feeling better - Dean wasn't ashamed to admit that that exciting thought had crossed his mind more than once.

The Stanford thing came as a bit of a shock, but mostly because he'd had to hear it from his father. Sam hadn't called or texted or even so much as sent a freaking postcard to tell him that he'd finally decided to go with that scholarship. The scholarship that he had first told Dean about while lying in bed with Dad out on a bender at some hick bar, his face pressed against Dean's chest with his shaggy hair all messed up from sex - oh, that was a good memory. Right now, Dean couldn't keep a smile off his face as he thought about it.

So, Sam hadn't contacted him. Dean figured he needed space, time to cool off, and gave him that. He gave him two freaking years of that.

So when Dad had dropped off the face of the Earth, and he'd finally had a chance to head west and see his baby brother, he'd been ecstatic. Two whole _years._ Granted, he hadn't been exactly celibate during those two years - a guy had needs, after all - but every single man or woman he'd so much as laid hands on was an unbelievably poor substitute for Sam. His first, his favorite, his only. And he'd thought that Sam would...what, exactly? Fall into his arms with a little coo of affection? Light up the second he saw him, beam and laugh and pull him into a loving bear hug? Throw him up against a wall and shower him with desperate, eager kisses?

The truth was that Dean wasn't quite sure about the details of what he'd been expecting. But it definitely hadn't been this.

Sam stalked ahead of him, taking the stairs two at a time, making a beeline for the heavy fire door that led out into the parking lot of this building, where Dean had left his Impala. He kept his eyes on his brother's back, fury making his head pound as everything Sam had said, ever cutthroat verbal stab, cycled through his mind.

_Don't touch me._

_Don't call me that._

_Shut up._

_I wish it hadn't happened._

_Just let me forget about it, okay? That's what I want._

It was almost enough to make him hate him, right now, for how much it had hurt to hear those things come out of his mouth. And how totally revolted he'd sounded when talking to him, how vicious.

Dean hadn't expected the high-end, well-decorated apartment. He hadn't expected the apparent lack of weaponry. He actually _had _expected that Sam just might be sleeping with someone, but...a girl? No, he hadn't expected that. And he definitely hadn't expected to feel so...despised.

Right now, he just didn't know what to think. Or what to do. Or anything.

All he really knew was that Sam had touched him for the first time in two years, been all pressed against him. Granted, it hadn't exactly been sexual, but that didn't change the fact that he was aching all over with the need to touch and be touched more, and his cock was throbbing in his pants, so hard it was painful. He hadn't felt like this in years, and was pretty sure he was moving around in his own little cloud of "I-really-need-to-bang-something" pheromones. The only thing that stopped him from catching up to Sam, wrapping his arms around his waist while he purred into his neck and used his fingertips to tease at the bulge in the front of his jeans, was how standoffish and stiff and angry Sam was now. He wouldn't like it, he wouldn't reciprocate. He'd fight him off and scream at him some more, and by then Dean probably would have blown any chance he'd had of being heard out on the subject of Dad's disappearing act.

So he left Sam alone, even though he remembered how it used to be, and the very first time that he'd figured out that Sam had something, _was_ something, he couldn't find anywhere else. Thinking about that sent a zing of excitement and sudden guilt howling up his spine. That was a pretty good memory, too; much better than the present. Dean wondered if Sam remembered it, too.

But maybe he'd been too young.

* * *

Late November, 1986

* * *

"I probably won't be gone all that long."

Dean nodded to show that he understood, staring reverently up at the tall, scruffy, leather-jacket-wearing figure that was his dad.

"Keep the doors and windows locked. Don't let anyone in, and don't answer the phone."

"Yes, sir," Dean said. He knew the drill by now, how important it was to do what Dad said, the sorts of things that could come after him and Sammy while he was gone. But he couldn't help feeling proud that Dad trusted him to do this, stay home alone, and he still couldn't get over how cool it was that he was going off to fight monsters.

"And look after Sammy."

"Yes, sir." Dean nodded again. Sammy was little, helpless, had no idea what Dad did. He didn't even know enough to be afraid when he left. Not that Dean was ever afraid, either, but he kinda envied his little brother for his cluelessness. He intended to make sure he was clueless for a long time, though.

"That's my boy." Dad patted him on the head as he turned and went out the door, ruffling his close-cropped blonde hair. He'd just cut it for him, saying it was impractical to have hair as long as his had been getting. He watched him go, then locked the door behind him and headed back into the bedroom. Sammy was asleep on the bed that Dean shared with him. He thought about crawling in next to his brother, where it would be warm and comfortable despite the scratchy sheets and he'd feel perfectly safe. But, no, he wanted to shower first. They'd been in the car for the past couple of days with no running water, and Dad had given Sammy a bath before he left, but Dean had been busy helping to lay out the salt and the iron. He imagined he could feel dirt rubbing between his clothes and his skin, and, right now, getting clean sounded just the tiniest bit better than sleeping.

He didn't stay under the spray of water long, intent on just getting clean and going to bed. Not to mention not disturbing Sammy. But even just five minutes of running water must have been enough to wake him up, because when Dean came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his body and thrown over his head like a cloak, his younger brother was sitting up in bed, hair mussed and covers puddled over his folded legs. Dean couldn't help but feel a rush of warmth when he saw him. He didn't exactly have a lot of contact with three-year-olds other than Sammy, but he was pretty sure that his brother was remarkable. Sam could talk just as good as he could now, and Dean thought he might already be reading a little (he blurted out the names of gas stations when they drove past them, but maybe he just recognized the logos), and he was just so unconditionally _loyal_. It was times like this - Sammy, blinking sleepily and the old T-shirt of Dad's that he wore as pajamas huge on him - that Dean couldn't help but love him (not that he'd ever admit that), and find that he really didn't mind taking care of him. Just as long as he didn't start crying or something, being really annoying.

"Hey," Dean said. He crawled up onto the bed with the thin motel towel still wrapped around him, kneeling right in front of his brother. He was mostly dry now, and he let the corner that covered his head slide off. The winter air that came through the crappy seals on the windows made his damp scalp tingle. "You're s'posed to be asleep."

"You woke me up." Sammy's voice was matter-of-fact, not whiny or anything like that.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to." Dean glanced towards the olive-drab duffel bag in the corner, which held most of his stuff, including the boxers and ripped T-shirt that he slept in. He should really get ready for bed; it was getting late.

"'S okay," Sammy replied in his calm little-boy voice. He yawned. "I was having a bad dream."

The dichotomy of Sammy's reactions to his nightmares never ceased to amaze Dean. Sometimes, he woke up screaming and crying. Sometimes, he was perfectly calm about it. Like now. Dean had nightmares, too, but he always brought himself out of it without making a sound and laid there, stiff, until the irrational terror passed. Sometimes he hugged his brother, who didn't seem to mind, close to him, just to remind himself that he had _someone. _But he never woke Dad up like Sam did. And his dreams had a lot more horrible variety - all of Sammy's monsters had yellow eyes and bled poison into his mouth. God only knew where he'd come up with that.

"Oh. Uh." Nightmares were just not Dean's area of expertise, despite his own experience with them. "What was it about?" He was okay with heating up condensed soup for Sammy and patching up all his scrapes and bruises, but bad dreams and feelings were just a little too girly for him to deal with comfortably. He wished Dad were here. Not that he seemed to like doing this sort of thing any more than Dean did.

"You were gone, and Dad didn't wanna look for you." Sammy frowned. "I was alone. I missed you."

"Well, I'm here now. I'm right here."

"Uh-huh." He reached out to touch Dean, maybe because of some childish need to convince himself that he was real. "I'm happy." His tiny hand rested against Dean's bare thigh, palm warm and fingers splayed, and his thumb brushed against his penis.

Dean gasped before he could stop himself. The contact sent lightning bolts through him, just that little touch spreading tingles up through his stomach and the small of his back. His heart sped up, hammering against his ribs so hard he started to feel light-headed. He felt blood rushing down into his crotch, making him twitch, just a little. This wasn't something he ever remembered happening before, and he wasn't quite sure what to think.

Sammy pulled his hand away as Dean let the towel fall to the bed behind him and leaned back, bracing his arms against the mattress and staring at his cock, stiffening just a little and swelling between his legs. It...felt kind of good, actually, throbbing with an eager need he didn't really understand. But it didn't feel finished. He wanted Sam to touch him again, wanted those lightning bolts back. He wanted to look into those clear hazel eyes of his while it happened.

Speaking of Sammy, he made a small, curious noise, looking at Dean's half-erect cock with wide eyes. He pushed the blankets off of his legs, mirroring Dean's kneeling position and leaning forward. He glanced up at his brother, face open and fascinated.

"What'd I do?" he asked.

"I dunno, Sammy," Dean answered, breathing hard. Before he could say anything else, Sam reached out and touched the swelling head of his cock with soft fingertips. Dean closed his eyes, a quiet groan slipping out of him as the touch made him throb in a way that wasn't entirely unpleasant, stiffening just a little more. Sammy jerked his hand back.

"Does it hurt?"

"No. No way." Dean shook his head rapidly, the little taste of pleasure he'd just gotten making him want more. "No, it feels _good."_

"Really?" Sam's expression was so anxious it was almost funny. Panting just a little, the tip of his tongue hanging over his lower lip, Dean shook his head again. He ran his fingers reassuringly through his brother's silky hair, gently cupping the side of his face and trying to make that childish worry disappear.

"Really. You're not hurting me," he assured him. Sammy didn't reply to that, just glanced back down at Dean's manhood, at the way it had grown and hardened but didn't look quite complete, and the smooth, unbroken skin of it. He touched again, stroking his palm up and down his brother's length, moving a little faster and pressing a little harder when he realized that what he was doing was making Dean's cock swell more. Dean watched him, breathing hard, just as fascinated as Sammy was as he felt himself grow to his full length. Sam's gentle movements drew him up, made him breath harder and his hips twitch forward a little. The need was greater now, delicious tingles spreading out through his crotch and up into the rest of his body, and that feeling of being stuck halfway was gone now. Apparently sensing that his work was done, Sammy let go of him, leaning back and cocking his head as he looked at what he'd managed to do to Dean. He just looked really interested, curious, not quite sure what it was that had happened but liking it. Dean had to agree with him there.

Sammy kept examining Dean's cock for a few more seconds, before leaning forward again, and reaching out. Hesitantly, as if afraid that he'd be told to cut it out at any second, he wrapped one hand around the base, his thumb and middle finger barely touching. Dean realized just how small his hands were, and just how cute that was. "W-what're you doing, Sammy?" His own voice was so low and husky that he barely recognized it. He couldn't believe how good it felt, to be touched like this. How sensitive this part of him was. The sounds he was making - was this...sexual?

He knew, basically, how sex worked. But, no, this couldn't have anything to do with sex. From the few glimpses that he had caught of Dad and the random women he sometimes brought back to the room with him, sex didn't involve hands, or this weird thing that was going on with his dick. Just a lot of moaning and being tangled together.

Not answering him, Sammy drew his hand up, all the way to the head of Dean's cock, squeezing gently and drawing a low moan out of him. Dean stroked his hair again, gently, lovingly, as he moved down, then up again. He gasped sharply, a wide smile of pure pleasure spreading across his face, and Sammy looked up and smiled back. He looked happy, excited, just glad that he was making his big brother feel so good. Dean half-wondered if he should tell him to stop. So they could figure out what was going on, why he liked it so much - and there was clear liquid, cloudier than water, beading on the tip of him now, was that normal?

But he decided against it. Especially when Sam started to use his other hand in a "just-wanna-see-what'll-happen" kind of way, teasing Dean's head while he worked his first hand up and down his shaft. He sped up as he gained confidence and pressed hard in all the right places to get a gasp or a moan out of him. He stroked the end of Dean's cock with his fingertips, almost petting, and Dean panted, trying to get a grip on himself. This was okay. It felt good, it made him happy, it made Sammy happy.

So why did he feel a mounting pressure in his balls, his cock?

"D-don't stop, Sam," Dean said shakily, swallowing hard and then involuntarily throwing his head back with a moan as his brother's thumb brushed up against a spot that was, apparently, particularly sensitive. "Don't stop."

"Okay." Sammy sounded eager and happy, and his movements, which had been clumsy at first, were getting more and more refined, sending greater and greater waves of pleasure crashing through Dean. He shuddered, gasping, but he definitely wasn't surprised by how good Sam was at this. He'd been holding a pencil perfectly just the other day, his hand-eye coordination was impressive, and - and, oh, _God,_ that felt good.

"Faster," Dean almost begged, hand still resting on Sammy's head with his fingers all tangled up in his hair. He did as he was told, his little hands speeding up, and Dean bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut and breathed hard through his nose as he tried to understand what was happening to him. He smelled soap, both the kind he used and the sort that Dad broke out whenever he gave Sammy a bath, and Sammy's toothpaste (all his baby teeth were already in), and his own sweat, and a sharp, musky, animal smell he didn't recognize.

Sammy was leaning over him now, really concentrating on what he was doing, delicate fingers leaving trails that burned deliciously all up and down Dean's cock. Dad's old gray T-shirt was stretched taut across his back_, _outlining shoulder blades that were as small and fragile-looking as the wings of a baby bird. They twitched with every panted breath, hot little excited puffs of air that Dean could feel against his dick. That - Sammy's warm breath on him - was enough to get rid of whatever self-control he still had.

With a cry high-pitched enough to embarrass him later, he cupped the side of Sammy's head with one hand, and used the other to grab his shoulder and hang on for dear life as his body arched. Pleasure so intense it practically made his vision blur ripped through him, and the building pressure vanished into an overwhelming sense of relief as a hot white mess shot out of him. It splattered onto his bare belly, Sam's hands, the sheets and blankets, and Sam's shirt. As soon as that stuff was out of him, and that sharp smell had intensified, the pleasure started to ebb, leaving Dean feeling shaky and exhausted and like he was walking on clouds.

Sam let go of him, and Dean noticed that his cock was shrinking, softening. His little brother examined the cream-colored mess on his hands and shirt, which practically glowed in the dim lights of the motel room, not disgusted, just curious. That went on for a couple seconds, as he rubbed it between his fingers and looked at it and basically just explored. Finally, he looked up at Dean, and wordlessly held his hands up to him.

Dean grimaced. He was in second grade, and he knew what that was; the other kids talked about it enough. Jizz. Come. There were a million names for it, each worse than the last, and everyone acted like it was pretty much the filthiest thing that could come out of a guy - though no one really knew just _how _it came out of a guy. But he wasn't so sure about that anymore. He'd made a mess, yeah, but there wasn't anything filthy about what he and Sammy had just done, was there?

"Sorry," he said, voice apologetic. "Let's get you cleaned up."

He pulled Sammy's shirt up and off over his head, completely exposing his little brother. His tiny penis, his soft belly, his pale, perfect skin. Dean had to bite his lip to keep from exclaiming over just how gorgeous he looked right then, especially looking up at him so trustingly with his dark hair falling back. He balled up the shirt around the stain on it and stuffed it deep into the trash can, then took Sammy into the bathroom and held him up so he could wash his hands. After using a paper towel to scrub his stomach clean, he got dressed, put a clean shirt on Sam, and stripped the bed, dumping the soiled sheets next to the door. So housekeeping would be sure to find them. Dean found extra bedding in the drawers of one of the nightstands, and once the mattress was no longer bare, he crawled underneath the covers next to his brother, completely exhausted. Unexpectedly, Sammy snuggled right up against him. He pressed his face into his chest and grabbed onto his shirt, begging to be held without saying a word. Dean put his arms around him, rubbing soothingly right between his shoulder blades, and closed his eyes.

"Um...thanks," he said quietly, unsure what to say after what had just happened between the two of them. What Sam had just done for him.

He all but burrowed into him, his grip on his shirt getting tighter, and his voice was muffled when he said, "I'm glad you're here. Not gone."

Dean tucked his head down, so his chin rested against the top of Sammy's head. When he started to talk, he kept his voice low and quiet, but just going by the way his brother squirmed and cooed, he heard him.

"I love you."

* * *

Mid-September, 2005

* * *

_Still do, Sammy. _Dean watched Sam shove open the door and lead the way out into the parking lot, legs stiff and back ramrod-straight, and followed him with his hands shoved deep into his pockets. _You might hate me, or something, and I might not get why, but I just can't help that I still love you._

Sam paused, for a moment, looking around the parking lot until he spotted the Impala - _She _is _pretty hard to miss, _Dean realized with a guttering flash of pride - and walked over to it. He moved with that graceful, long-legged stride that Dean remembered, but he seemed more...relaxed, somehow, than he had two years ago. He didn't glance over his shoulder as he walked, and he didn't have half-predatory, half-defensive aspect to his gait that Dean knew still had to be present in his own. And he was really _loud, _too. What had happened to make him let his guard down so much? Was it just a concentrated effort to appear more "normal" or whatever? Had nothing bad happened to him? No monster attacks, no weirdness in the newspapers that piqued his interest and sent him into danger, no curses or magical diseases or anything cropping up around him...?

Maybe stuff _had _happened, just not to him or anyone he cared about, so he didn't care. That thought bothered Dean a little.

Sam stopped next to the trunk of the car, waiting. Once Dean had joined him, he looked away, speaking without making eye contact.

"Again," he started, "there is no way I'm running off with you. Tell me whatever you want about Dad and what's going on with him, but I'm not leaving. Not now, not ever. I'm done. I was done two years ago." He coughed slightly, turning so his face was thrown entirely into shadow. "Whatever you're gonna say...I don't care. I'm staying here."

"Really?" Dean asked skeptically, letting smartassery take the place of the hurt he couldn't seem to dislodge from his chest. "So...what're you gonna do? You're just gonna live some normal, apple-pie life? Is that it?"

"No. Not normal. Safe," Sam replied. He hesitated, then continued, facing Dean. "Though I guess things are a lot more normal for me now than what I was doing before."

Somehow, Dean didn't think he was talking about how freaking weird hunting could get, and that felt like a punch to the gut. And, as usually happened when he got punched, Dean started getting pissed.

"And that's why you ran away," he said, glancing away before he couldn't help himself anymore and started yelling. It wasn't a question, and he sure as hell wasn't talking about hunting, either.

"I was just going to college," Sam said stiffly.

"Sure you were."

A long, awkward silence followed, and Dean immediately just wanted to take a step forward and pull his little brother into his arms, tell him he hadn't meant to sound so bitter, tell him he wasn't mad at him. He wanted to tell him that he was here now, everything would be okay, they could pick up right where they left off and it would be like nothing had ever happened. But that urge dimmed pretty quickly when he saw the way that Sam was looking at him - eyes full of disgust so strong Dean was surprised it didn't just start eating holes in his jacket. Like acid. He started talking, just to break the silence and get his mind off what he was feeling right now. And to get Sam to stop looking at him like that.

"Yeah, well." He cleared his throat. "Dad's in real trouble right now. If he's not dead already." He shifted his weight, lifting his chin a little. "I can feel it."

Sam didn't say anything. He was looking away now, and there was something tense, almost painful in the set of his shoulders. Dean crushed another urge to hold him and whisper comforting things. He'd probably try to rip his throat out with his teeth.

"I can't do this alone," Dean said, shaking his head

"Yes, you can," Sam said quietly. Dean shrugged.

"Yeah, well, I don't want to."

He immediately regretted saying that. It just sounded so...so needy, so vulnerable, so _broken, _and it would probably make Sam even more disgusted with him. He shouldn't have said that. Or he should have elaborated. Said that he got in a lot of bar fights or something, and he needed another strong guy he could count on to save his ass if his ass needed saving, but time was running out now and he couldn't add anything onto it. Sam sighed heavily, looking down, and Dean's stomach dropped. He was probably about to tell him exactly what he thought of him. How he felt. And, judging by the way he'd been acting, it was gonna hurt. When he raised his head, Dean braced himself.

_God, no, I can't lose you. Not for real._

But Sam didn't tell him that he hated him and wanted him out of his life. Instead, he just shook his hair back from his face and asked, "What was he hunting?"

His voice was dry, almost viciously sarcastic, but Dean would take what he would get. Unlocking the trunk of the Impala, he told himself he felt a little better now.

He didn't, not really. But at least Sam was here, with him, not halfway across the country.

He was happy about that.


	3. Chapter 3

**Aaand, by the end of this chapter, I'm no longer shamelessly plagiarizing from canon.**

**As much.**

**A huge thanks to decemberdove, who is pretty much the best pre-reader/sounding board a Wincest writer could ask for.**

* * *

"All right. I'll go. I'll help you find him."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Sam wanted to take them back. Panic started down in his stomach and threatened to crawl up his throat and choke him as the full realization of what he'd just agreed to dawned on him. He was going to be alone with Dean. In the car, in a hotel room, only inches away from him at times. Close enough to feel the familiar heat coming off his body, to hear the rasp of every breath, to accidentally brush up against him. Or not so accidentally. The memory of a million different touches over the years suddenly flared up all over him - blazing handprints on his chest, the imprints of fingertips glowing in the small of his back, gently-cupped palms lighting up his face. They burned so hot he was surprised that he was only really glowing in his own head, and he automatically took a giant step back.

Dean looked shocked, but probably not by the movement. He looked like he honestly hadn't expected Sam to say yes to him - at least, not as fast as he had. He'd only talked for about ten minutes, laid out their father's most recent case for him, drawing newspaper clippings and photographs out of the trunk of his beloved Impala, having Sam listen to the voicemail their dad had left him - the very last time he'd contacted him - and the voice that he'd managed to pick up in the background of it. This had all been interspersed with wisecracks and anecdotes and references to stuff the three of them had done together in the past, and Sam had started to hear the tension underneath his brother's aggressively-amused demeanor. The worry for their father, the guilt at having let him down, longing and affection that made Sam swallow hard and try to keep the reciprocal feelings that automatically sprang up under control.

_You're hell-bent on saving a guy who thinks you're an abomination, and you don't even know that he hates you._ That was the thought that kept cycling bitterly through his head as Dean explained everything to him. He didn't want to feel sympathetic towards him, all alone and on the verge of completely losing his calm facade. He didn't want to feel worried about Dad.

But he did. On both counts.

"Really means a lot to me, Sammy - Sam." Dean nodded gratefully to him, and apparently pretended not to notice when the nickname made him stiffen and grit his teeth. "Thanks."

"I'm going with you. But I have to get back first thing Monday." Sam had to force the words out, past all his misgivings and discomfort. _Oh, God, why am I doing this...?_ Stiffly, he turned to go back inside. "Just wait here."

Dean's voice made him pause. "What's first thing Monday?"

"I have this..." He hesitated, not sure he should tell him, then decided it really didn't matter. "I have an interview."

"What, a job interview?" He made a dismissive gesture, looking unimpressed. "Skip it."

"It's a law school interview," Sam replied, anger starting to boil in his stomach. "It's my whole future on a plate."

"Law school?" Dean raised an eyebrow. "You wanna be a lawyer?"

"I do." Sam felt a sudden, desperate, almost childish need to hurt him, for the skepticism in his voice and the way he kept hungrily raking his eyes over him and the fact that _he didn't know _how much Dad hated them, or why. "Not sure what I want to major in, though. Maybe I'll just take the cases no one else wants to touch. Statutory rape. Child molestation. Incest."

He knew he might have gone too far, by the sick little ache in his own chest. Reducing what they'd had to such clinical, ugly terms that didn't fit at all - no, he couldn't afford to think like that. Not now. Not even with Dean standing right in front of him, reminding him of some of the only times he'd been actually, really happy, and the little flutters of misguided affection that kept sneaking past his barriers, and the massive erection chafing against the cotton of his boxers. He told himself, very firmly, that everything he was feeling were just echoes of something that never should have happened - and he thought he might even believe it.

He'd expected Dean to react. Yell at him, lunge at him, even just twist up his face into an expression of fury and hurt. But, just like on the stairs, he stayed completely impassive, face and body language shutting down into a smooth shell that broadcast nothing. Sam wondered where this stone mask of his had come from, because he'd never seen it before. And he'd really thought that he'd seen Dean's everything.

_Cut it out. It's not good to keep dredging these thoughts and memories back up, not healthy..._

"Look, I just wanna find Dad," Dean said. His voice was just as expressionless as his face. "And I thought you said we weren't gonna talk about this."

He had. And while it made him absolutely furious to have his own words thrown back in his face like his, he was mature enough to know that he couldn't keep lashing out at his brother like he had been - despite how much he might want to - if he wanted to keep this whole thing as short and as free of any kind of contact as he wanted it to be. So he nodded, just once, and forced himself to cool down.

"We aren't," Sam said, doing his best to match Dean's tone. He cleared his throat, a little awkwardly, before saying, "So. Monday. We got a deal or not?"

"Well, I'll sure as hell try to make sure you get back in time for this school-thing of yours," he replied. "But you should really know that I can't make any promises."

Sam did know. He had spent nearly twenty years learning that stuff like this never turned out to be as simple as you hoped and prayed it was gonna be.

* * *

"Wait, you're taking off?"

Sam's head jerked up, and he automatically clamped the secondary compartment of his backpack closed while he glanced over his shoulder. Jess, who'd been in the kitchen with a mug of coffee when he'd come back into their apartment, stood in the doorway. She looked worried, and a little perplexed, and both exhausted and perky at the same time - a sign of caffeine use that he was more than familiar with, having gone straight from being a monster hunter whose targets operated almost exclusively at ungodly hours of the night to an undergrad student.

Looking at her messy blonde hair and the faded clothes she wore as pajamas and the tired slouch of her shoulders, he felt an immediate rush of affection, soured a little by the realization that he was going to have to leave her.

"Is this about your dad?" she asked, her voice concerned as she stepped into the bedroom. Sam immediately zipped up the open compartment of his backpack, so she wouldn't see all the non-conventional (and, in several cases, highly illegal) weaponry stacked neatly inside. He just thanked whatever deity was currently willing to listen that she hadn't come in while all the knives were laid out on the bedspread. "Is he all right?"

"Yeah," he replied, reluctantly leaving the backpack and the mini-arsenal, which had been hidden deep in the closet and never so much as touched for two years. It made him nervous, to have weaponry (and, more importantly, a symbol of who and what he was and how dangerous that could be) so close to his girlfriend. She looked so fragile. "You know, just a little family drama."

He walked over to their dresser, pulling open a drawer and grabbing a couple shirts and a pair of jeans at random. Jess sat down on the bed - ironically, right where the knives had been - as he dropped the clothes into his backpack. Without even thinking about it, he extended the movement to gently sweep a little strand of hair out of her face, from where it had fallen right in front of her eyes. She looked up at him.

"You'll be back before Monday morning, right?" she asked.

"Of course."

And he would, one way or another. Even if he had to leave Dean alone out in Nowhere, U.S.A.

Jess hesitated, then spoke again.

"Y'know, you've never really talked about your family," she began.

"Not much to talk about," Sam replied abruptly, zipping the backpack closed.

"Yeah, I know, you've said that before. But...now you're taking off in the middle of the night with your brother." She bit her lip. "What's going on between you two, anyway?"

Sam suddenly felt like he'd swallowed a bucket of liquid nitrogen.

"What do you mean?" he asked, his nonchalant tone sounding incredibly strained, even to him. _Oh, God, please don't tell me you've figured out...us. Don't start looking at me like...like... _His mental voice trailed off. _Not you. I don't think I could take you knowing.__  
_

"Well, you get so tense when he's around. Even right now, you're wound tighter than I've ever seen you," Jess pointed out. "And you keep looking at him like, um, like you want to take a swing at him."

He immediately relaxed, a reassuring smile spreading across his face, not noticing the slight hesitation in her voice. Like she'd wanted to say something else, or been about to add something.

"We don't really get along," he explained, reaching down to take her hand and pull her up into a standing position, so she wasn't looking up so far. What he'd said was, basically, the truth. "Don't worry, though. It'll be okay."

"Why are you going with him, then? Can't he go check on your dad on his own?"

"He's not really used to being on his own." The words came out before Sam even really realized he was speaking them. "I mean, he's always had me, or Dad, or both of us, and he needs a moral compass. Somebody to lean on. I can't let him charge off alone."

And this was the truth, he realized. He'd be doing everyone a service, keeping Dean on a leash _(No, no, no, use a different metaphor...)._ Making sure he didn't punch someone's lights out in a bar or a gas station or a parking lot, or peg the wrong person as a monster, or go just a little too far while interviewing civilians. Granted, though, the loose-cannon side of him had only really started to shine through when Dad had stuck around for a couple days in a row and he hadn't been able to touch Sam like he wanted to -

A little shiver of what he told himself, firmly, was disgust made Jess look at him funny, and he gave her another reassuring smile.

"Hey," he said gently, swinging his backpack up onto one shoulder. "Everything's going to be okay. I will make it back in time, I promise."

He pulled her towards him, wrapping her in his arms and resting his chin on top of her head. When she pulled back a little and tilted her face up, he kissed her on the lips, a soft, lingering, unmistakable "goodbye" kiss that he guessed neither of them were really familiar with. And, right then, he really hated himself for feeling anything at all for Dean, ever, and wished that he just had Jess to worry about. She deserved a whole lot better than him.

He held her for a little longer, regretting ever telling Dean he'd go with him, and then left.

* * *

It was dawn before either Sam or Dean spoke. Sam would have been the first to admit that the silence in the car had passed 'awkward' several hours back, but he preferred it to the alternative. He stared out the window, watching scrubby desert scenery roll past and listening to the hum of the engine, which was practically a lullaby from his childhood. Right up there with Dean's voice, before things started going just as wrong between them as they possibly could, and AC/DC albums.

He might have found it oddly comforting, to be back in the Impala, if the atmosphere hadn't been quite so...tense.

Dean finally decided he'd had enough and broke the silence with a loud sigh, drumming the tips of his fingers on the steering wheel and glancing over at Sam, who very carefully ignored him.

"So," he started. Sam, wishing for once that he was smaller so he could fold himself up against his side of the car, closed his eyes. "You're not even gonna ask where we're going?"

"You already told me," he replied, eyes still closed and voice flat.

"I did?" Dean sounded surprised.

"Lake City, Nevada. Abandoned Army base. Locals started disappearing, so Dad went to check it out."

"Huh," Dean said thoughtfully. Sam heard him lean back in his seat, probably only leaving the fingers of one hand on the wheel and casually tossing his other arm back. It was a pose he had hated, for being outdated and contrived, even back when they were...younger. "I guess I did, then." He laughed, suddenly, and it was so forced it made Sam's throat ache. "Only twenty-six and I'm already losing my memory. I'm just screwed, huh, Samm - Sam?"

_Well, at least this time, he managed not to say it._

"Y'know, I just remembered that there's a bunch of stuff I've been wanting to tell you all about," he went on, artlessly changing the subject. "For example. Last July, a bunch of recent divorcees turned up dead of heart attacks in their beds up in Oregon, so me and Dad went up there, and found out it was a succubus. A _couple _of succubuses, actually - "

_Succu_bi, Sam automatically thought, but he didn't correct Dean out loud. His eyes were still closed, and the loud, throaty purr of the Impala's engine was settling into his bones.

" - and that wasn't even where things got weird, lemme tell you. One of 'em was working as a waitress at this greasy little bar right across from the motel where we were staying, and, obviously, I didn't know she was a soul-sucking sex-vampire whore. I just knew that she really seemed to like me, and she had a really gorgeous - "

Sam rested his head against the window, the glass of which was already starting to heat up as the early-morning rays of sunlight hit it. He wondered, idly, what Jess was doing. Weekends were usually the days both of them sat down together and did their homework, and she had a lot of it in her nursing program. Sometimes, he was even able to help her, though it usually led to her asking half-joking questions about why on Earth he thought it was a good idea to sterilize a wound with whiskey or sew it up with dental floss.

Or maybe she'd gone shopping. They were out of milk.

" - so, next thing I know, I wake up in some abandoned warehouse or something, and me and Dad are both tied to these huge freaking beds. Then the waitress shows up, and a couple other of the best-looking girls you've ever seen, and...they..." He trailed off for a second, and when he spoke again, his near-desperate, hyper-friendly tone had been replaced by something more commanding, more serious. "Hey. Dude. Are you even listening to me?"

Sam heard a rustle of fabric as Dean reached out to grab his shoulder or something, hesitated, and then pulled back without touching him. He opened his eyes a crack, feeling irritated, but not really angry. Not anymore. Maybe he was just tired.

"Uh-huh," he said, proud of himself for sounding so bored. "You banged a bunch of random succubi. Good for you."

Through the crack between his eyelids, he saw Dean's face redden slightly, especially the tips of his ears. He turned his attention back to the road, shoulders hunched, and Sam couldn't tell if he was angry, embarrassed, or hurt. He felt a sudden rush of guilt, even though he wished he didn't.

"Wasn't really the point of the story," he muttered, so low that Sam could barely hear him. "...besides. I didn't really...there weren't that many. People that I did that sort of thing with, I mean." He glanced at Sam out of the corner of his eye, and swallowed awkwardly. "Tried to keep it to a minimum. Y'know."

When Sam didn't say anything, he exhaled loudly through his nose, still keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead.

"You could talk to me, you know," he suggested.

"I don't really feel like talking."

Dean allowed a few seconds of blessed silence, just staring at the road with sunlight flashing off the hood of the Impala and lighting his eyes up in an impossible shade of green. Sam closed his eyes again (with his brother's eyes burned into his retinas and making him twitch with the effort of keeping himself under control), beginning to think that he'd be left alone for the rest of the trip. Until Dean, tone forcibly casual, said, "So. This girlfriend of yours."

Sam opened his eyes all the way, feeling every muscle in his jaw tighten, and forced himself to stay still and keep his voice steady.

"I especially don't feel like talking about her," he answered through gritted teeth.

"Okay, simmer down," Dean said lightly. "I just...didn't know you were into girls. That's all."

Sam clenched his jaw just a little harder, and one of his teeth, near the front, started to ache. A revenant had punched him in the face when he was thirteen, knocked the tooth out in the middle of a graveyard. His father hadn't been too terribly impressed that he'd actually managed to find the tooth and pack it in Maine snow to preserve it. He'd told him losing a tooth wasn't a big deal, and then fallen into bed after what was probably too many shots of whiskey. Dean, on the other hand, had dug the keys out of the pocket of Dad's jeans, herded a shell-shocked and bloody-mouthed Sam out to the Impala, and driven him to the only dentist's office in the tri-state area that was equipped to handle late-night emergencies. Several hours later, when Sam was too full of Novocaine to even so much as worry about what anyone watching might think (much less how they were going to pay for this), he practically fell against the lean form of his older brother and mumbled a very heartfelt thank-you through a mouth full of cotton and plaster. He didn't remember much after that - a hand ruffling his hair, a brilliant smile, and Dean's voice telling him that, well, he sure as hell wasn't gonna content himself to kiss someone looked like some sort of gap-toothed hillbilly freak.

His mouth had hurt. Dean had held him.

He violently shoved that memory our of his head. Comebacks immediately filed the space it had occupied - Dean didn't know he was into girls because he'd never allowed him to have a normal, healthy relationship, Dean had never once asked about his sexuality even once he got old enough to know which way he swung (there had been one talk - he decided it didn't count), every girl he came across had thought he was too much of a freak for him to get close enough to her to find out if he was "into" her kind. Because of Dean.

What he said instead was, "There's a lot of things you don't know about me."

And that bought Sam complete silence and tension so thick you could have cut it with an illegal Japanese-made hunting knife for the next hour or so. He decided he would take what he could get and closed his eyes, resting. He didn't actually sleep, not with his brother next to him. He trusted Dean about as far as he could throw him when it came to not taking advantage of him, and, while it might be entertaining to test just how far that was, he would rather not wake up with a hand down his pants. He'd barely managed to fiercely think away at least part of his erection, and he didn't want to be flying at full mast when Dean could so easily notice.

After that hour was up, Dean whipped the Impala into the parking lot of what must have been the only convenience store within a hundred-mile radius, simultaneously jerking Sam out of his doze, making him bang his kneecaps on the underside of the dashboard, and very nearly giving him a heart attack. He guided the car into an empty parking space, moving as smoothly as possible, and ignored the fact that Sam's knuckles were going white as, breathing hard, he gripped the door handle and the center console with all the strength he had.

"You're looking a little strung out there," Dean noted cheerfully, throwing open his door and climbing out into blinding sunshine. He leaned down and shot Sam a dazzling grin before he headed inside. "I'll make yours a decaf."

"You," Sam said, letting go and flopping back against his seat, "are a maniac."

Dean's grin widened.

"And you love it, Sammy-boy."

The moment - if it had even been long enough to be called that - dissolved with Dean's use of the nickname, and the good-natured glare that Sam had been leveling at him sharpened into something much more acidic. He turned away, upper lip curling in disgust that was as much for himself as it was for his brother, as Dean slammed the door with a muttered, "Sorry," and rushed inside. His cock rose to its full length again, unbidden, right after he heard that nickname, and he hated himself so much for it that he was glad the sun-heated glass of the window burned his forehead when he leaned against it.

Dean was back, avoiding eye contact, in just under ten minutes, with a pretty large paper bag and two Styrofoam cups. Sam didn't know what was in the bag, but the grease spots already appearing on it made his empty stomach roll uncomfortably. He caught the smell of almost-coffee, completely black, coming from the cup that Dean kept for himself when he shoved one at him. Without thinking, Sam took a sip, then slowly lowered the cup from his mouth and stared at it, surprised.

"You - "

"Yeah, I remember how you like it," Dean said, starting the engine. "Totally ruined. With vanilla and cream and all sorts of girly crap in there."

Sam stared at him, because that _was _how he liked his coffee. Jess even made fun of him for it, always asking if he wanted coffee with his cream and sugar, but he couldn't help it. He didn't remember when he'd first had the stuff, but he'd never liked the way it tasted. The effects of caffeine might be necessary. The bitter, rancid taste, as far as he was concerned, was not.

Dean knew how he liked his coffee, remembered that tiny, inconsequential detail about him.

He wasn't quite sure how that made him feel.

"Thanks," he said quietly.

"Don't mention it."

* * *

Colonel Jacob P. Moon was perfectly aware he was dead, and quite comfortable with that fact.

He was almost certain that his current state of being had come about during a fire. He knew his name, his blood type (A positive), and his religion (Methodist), because it was engraved in his dog tags. He knew his rank because there were three others who called him by it. He wasn't quite sure whose military they'd belonged to, though. Hopefully one of the good guys.

The other three were Elias P. Nakota (Blood type: O positive, religion: Baptist), Robert L. Dawson (Blood type: AB negative, religion: Catholic), and Dog Tag, so named because he hadn't been wearing his when he died and no one had any idea who was, least of all him. They reminded Colonel Moon who he was, and he kept them in line, and that worked pretty well for a pretty long time.

Until the day _she _showed up.

She glided into the base without anyone noticing, and found Colonel Moon in a room that may have very well once been his office. He was looking down, examining his tags, when she shoved the closed door open without touching it and strode in to stand right in front of his desk. He looked up, blinked at her slowly, and demanded, "Just who the hell - and _what _the hell - are you?"

At first glance, she was human, and she was alive (which would have meant that he had absolutely no beef with her whatsoever). She was also a man, but Colonel Moon barely needed to look at her for more than a second to figure out that there was something else going on there. The male, human face - it looked familiar to him, oddly enough - was transparent, superimposed over a second face inside the body. One that was almost skeletal, eye sockets empty except for roiling black smoke, and colorless skin crossed with so many bloodless open wounds and half-healed scars that the shape was barely even recognizable as female. More black smoke dribbled from those cuts, and wreathed the bald head that lay underneath a transparent layer of thick brown hair, making amorphous shapes that made him think of sheep horns. Her lips were gone, and that same smoke filled her mouth. Her body was a withered, underdeveloped thing, just as pale and scarred as her face, and it was curled into a fetal position inside the transparent chest of her vessel. Black smoke flowed out of her wounds and twisted through the limbs, which he guessed gave her complete control.

_"What _the hell am I?" she asked. Colonel Moon found it hard to focus on her voice, which underlay the unmistakably-male voice of the human she was curled up inside. "Colonel. Do you believe in demons?"

He wasn't sure what he'd believed in when he was alive, but right now, looking at what was standing, tucked inside a living, breathing man, in front of him, his answer was a resounding, "Yes." Being dead, he wasn't too intimidated, though. So he leaned back in his chair, being careful not to go through it, crossed his arms across his non-corporeal chest, and asked, "What are you doing here?"

She spread her hands helplessly, and her palms were filled with coiling black smoke underneath the translucent flesh.

"I just want to have a little fun," she whispered.

Colonel Moon couldn't remember ever liking anything less than he liked the way that that sounded, but, as it turned out, he didn't have much choice in the matter.


	4. Chapter 4

**Another flashback, though, this time, it's not nearly as graphic.**

**A quick-but-heartfelt thank-you to everyone who has favorited, followed, and, especially, reviewed.**

**It really does mean a lot.**

* * *

Standing on ratty carpet that had probably been green at some point in the sixties, Dean crossed one ankle behind the other and leaned his elbows on the desk, and passed the least-suspicious of his credit cards to the check-in girl with two fingers and a smile. She had pink hair, which was most definitely not something he usually went for, and looked like she couldn't be a day over sixteen. Still, it never hurt to get into an employee's good books. Especially when you were staying someplace like the Cholla Motel, where most of the doors didn't actually seem to have locks on them anymore.

The girl smiled back, revealing braces - _Yeah, not even going to touch that_ - with rubber bands the exact same shade of pink as her hair. After swiping Dean's card, she gave it back to him, and tapped idly at the dinosaur of a computer in front of her.

"So. One room, two beds?" she asked, more perky than anyone working someplace like this had a right to be.

"Yeah - " Dean began amiably, at the same time that Sam, who had been standing at the other end of the minuscule lobby and examining a fake plant, spun around with a plaintive, "What? No."

The girl blinked, clearly confused, and Dean straightened up with a very deep sigh threatening to tear its way out of him. He glanced back at Sam, who, obviously embarrassed, avoided his eyes.

"Give us a minute," he told the girl, before crossing the room with a few long strides. He almost crowded Sam into the corner that held the fake plant, in an effort to both keep the coming conversation private and be as close to him as possible, before realizing that that just might get him punched in the face. Lowering his voice to a raspy growl, he asked, "What's wrong with you?"

Sam looked away, a brooding expression on his face and the muscles of his jaw flexing.

"I'm...not comfortable sharing a room," he said quietly.

Dean made a split-second decision not to push him or tease him, not to test whatever fragile pace they'd manged to achieve on the way here. It was a far cry from what had been between them two years ago, from what he wanted, but at least Sam wasn't intentionally trying to hurt him anymore. And he could sense that he'd calmed down, gotten his emotions under control. He still didn't understand where all the hate and anger directed at him had come from, but it had ebbed for the moment, and he didn't want to ruin that. So he kept the hundred smartass comments that immediately popped into his head to himself, despite how much it hurt to know that Sam couldn't bring himself to sleep in the same room as him. He remembered when Sam couldn't even get to sleep without being in the same bed with him, either hugging him close or letting himself be held so he wouldn't be alone for even a second.

Just because he wasn't going to push him didn't mean he was going to pay for a second room, though.

"Okay," he said agreeably. "You can sleep in the car."

Sam blinked big hazel eyes at him, shocked, and Dean wanted to pull him down to his level and kiss away that shock, cute as it might be.

"Just try not to touch anything any more than you have to," he added, talking to take his mind off something he just wasn't allowed to do right now. "She's in mint condition, and I'd kill to keep her that way."

"I'm not sleeping in the car," Sam snapped at him. "Dude, just...get another room..."

"Safer just to get one." Dean tapped the pocket that held his wallet, and, therefore, his stash of illegitimate credit cards. "The less money we spend, the less red flags go up at Visa."

He didn't reply, just shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and turned away slightly with a heavy, resigned, "I-can't-even-believe-this-is-my-life" sigh. Because he didn't seem inclined to argue further, Dean almost felt like giving into him. But, no, it had to be just one room. That was one of Dad's rules, one he'd believed in fiercely enough to keep enforcing it even after he found out what his sons were getting up to in the bed they shared.

"I'll stay on my side of the room," Dean said, his voice as gentle as he dared to make it. "Promise."

"'Kay." Sam had the look of someone who wished they were somewhere, _any_where else than their current location. He didn't really blame him for not fighting harder, even though, he could tell, he really didn't want to do this. It'd been a long day spent almost entirely in the Impala, they were both tired, and no closer to finding Dad. Sam had called the local hospitals, looking for a guy in the ICU or the morgue who matched their dad's description, but hadn't turned up anything. Which, as far as Dean was concerned, basically just meant that he was either too badly hurt to get help for himself or lying dead someplace no one would stumble upon his body.

He raised a hand to slap his brother reassuringly on the shoulder, remembered Sam's earlier adamancy about not being touched, and just gave him a smile he hoped was apologetic instead. After getting the room key and digging their bags out of the back seat of the car, Dean led the way into a surprisingly-spacious, cactus-themed room. A flimsy-looking divider separated a tiny dining area from two queen-sized beds, placed disconcertingly close together, a TV, and a closed door that, most likely, led into a bathroom.

_It looks just like that place in Oklahoma. Summer of eighty-eight._

Dean surprised himself with the thought, mostly because it'd been so long ago. But, yeah, the room's layout was exactly the same as the one they'd stayed in while Sam started kindergarten and he started fourth grade.

_Oh._ Sam's first day of school. Mud on his clothes, backpack missing, tiny little sobs of pain and fear bouncing off walls that had been arranged exactly like these.

Yeah. He remembered that.

Sam dumped his backpack on the bed that was closer to the door and then dropped into one of the chairs at the tiny table. He pulled out his cell phone, dialing, and by the way his face lit up when someone on the other end answered, Dean guessed that he'd called his girlfriend. The blonde. He felt a momentary stab of vindictive satisfaction when he realized that Sam's expression for her wasn't laced with quite the same enthusiasm as the look he'd get on his face when he saw him, back when things still made sense. It was a tiny, pathetic victory, but a victory nonetheless.

It took him about ten seconds to figure out that their conversation wasn't going to be very interesting ("We got here safe, we're in a motel. No, I'm fine, don't worry...Yeah, he's fine, too...how are you? Are you done with that diagram of the circulatory system yet?"). He laid out flat on the bed that Sam hadn't claimed, the muscles of his back and arms hurting in the best possible way as he stretched them after a long day of driving.

_Oklahoma._

_Summer of eighty-eight._

_Sammy's first day of school._

For some reason, brushing shallowly against that memory like he'd been doing just wasn't shaking it. Some part of him wanted to relive it, so he sighed and laced his fingers together behind his head, closing his eyes. He really wasn't looking forward to the first three quarters or so of this, but everything that came after that...he could live with.

* * *

Mid-August, 1988

* * *

The kindergarten was closer to the motel they were staying at than the elementary school, which Dean had mixed feelings about. On one hand, he could walk Sammy to school in the mornings, without having to worry about him going the last few blocks alone or having to double back after dropping him off. And that was nice. But, on the other hand, Dad had decided, before he left, that Sam could have the key to the room and walk home on his own. He was starting school, five years old, and it was Dad's opinion that that was old enough to start doing some stuff without his brother.

Dean just wasn't comfortable with that, though he'd never disobey Dad's orders where he could see him. Which was why he had walked Sammy right up to the door of his new school this morning, checked that he had everything he needed - backpack, crayons, blanket, notebook; all of about the same low quality as the few supplies Dean himself had - and told him to wait for him after school. He estimated that it would only take him about five minutes to get over here, if he hurried.

The first day of school, for him, was pretty much exactly like it had been last year, and the year before that, and how he was begging to expect it to be for the rest of his academic career. His teacher, whose name he didn't even bother to learn because they'd be leaving soon, didn't like him. He didn't have most of the supplies he needed, he'd missed a lot of school last year during a hunt involving a nixie and so wasn't too great at multiplication, and his dad hadn't come to the mandatory parents' meeting before school started (Dean thought about telling them that he hadn't come because he'd been digging up a grave that, funnily enough, actually contained the wrong bones, then realized that that would probably go over like a ton of bricks and get him sent to the principal's office). The other kids didn't like him. He didn't want to make friends (he'd have to leave them, and, besides, he didn't actually need any friends, he had Sammy), his clothes were all secondhand, and one pocket of his beat-up black backpack was filled with rock salt and iron nails. A bit of which spilled on the floor during art class.

Dean didn't care. All he could think about was his little brother. He really wondered what and how he was doing - he thought that Sam was probably a lot smarter than him, and he'd been looking forward to school. He just wanted the final bell to ring so he could pick up Sammy and they could go home, hop up onto the bed they were sharing, talk about his day and hopefully touch each other in all the amazing ways they'd found over the last two years.

He just hoped Sam did what he'd told him to. He couldn't shake images of something with claws and fangs and red eyes snatching him right off the sidewalk as he walked home, or a hulking, inhuman figure waiting just inside the room and picking him up by his silky brown hair the second he came inside. Making him scream in pain and kick wildly and cry out for his big brother, who wouldn't get there in time.

Ironically enough, none of his "worst-case-scenario" fantasies included any humans besides Sammy. He was just a little boy, the ideal target for a certain type of person, but Dean was pretty sure that Sam could handle any purebred homo sapiens.

Dean was the first one out of the classroom when the bell rang, thrusting his arms through the straps of his backpack and feeling it smack home on his shoulder blades. He was sure that people were giving him weird looks as he jogged the whole way to the kindergarten, going faster than a normal kid would on his way home from school, but at nine, he was already getting used to strange stares and people whispering behind his back. He slowed down when he saw the wire fence around the building he had dropped Sammy off at this morning and the double doors that led into it.

Sam wasn't there.

_Calm down, _Dean told himself, even as his heart went from zero to a hundred in a second flat and his adrenaline levels skyrocketed. _I'm sure he's just around back._

He looked, kicking up a spray of wood chips as he charged around the building and into the playground area. There were a couple kids there, messing around, but one had red hair and one was a girl. Not Sam.

Someone must have spotted him running around like a lunatic out there, because one of the doors of the school creaked open behind him. Dean turned to see a woman - probably a teacher - walking towards him. He stayed where he was, let her approach him, even though his heart was still hammering against his ribcage and the need to find his baby brother and make sure he was all right got more powerful every second.

"Can I help you?" the woman asked, in a tone of voice that made it very clear that she would do anything at all to get rid of him. She wasn't the kind of woman Dad ran off with every once in awhile, the kind Dean was most familiar with and not terribly impressed by. Her shirt covered most of her chest and all of her stomach, so he figured he could trust her.

"I'm looking for my little brother," he explained reluctantly. "Sammy Winchester. 'Bout yea high - " He demonstrated, putting a hand at chest level on himself. " - long brown hair, red backpack."

"Oh." Her unsympathetic borderline-glare softened. "Are you Dean? You must be. Sam went home early."

He barely even wondered why she'd known his name. He zeroed in on that last sentence, blankly asking, "What?"

"He didn't want to stay, after what happened, and I didn't blame him. He said he could walk home, your father would be there - "

Dean was off like a bullet out of a gun before she even finished talking, getting back to the motel the one and only thing on his mind. He didn't stop to demand just what the hell'd happened, to make Sammy lie like that and leave school. He was furious, and sick with guilt, and, most of all, terrified.

* * *

Mid-September, 2005

* * *

"We still have some daylight left. We should probably try and take advantage of it."

Sam's voice, reasonable and calm and wholly dispassionate, brought Dean out of the light doze he'd slipped into. Realizing that the drone of the one-sided phone conversation had stopped and Sam was talking to him, he forced himself into a sitting position with a loud groan, scrubbing a hand across his eyes. He'd always hated sleeping in the daytime, hated how it made him feel sluggish and completely off his game for hours after and how it just completely went against every human instinct he had. Sometimes, though, the day was the only safe time to sleep.

"Whaddaya mean?" Dean slurred, blinking back exhaustion and a memory that had transitioned into dream format halfway through.

"This place doesn't have wi-fi. I'm going to head to the local library, find out what I can about this Army base from the internet and the old newspapers," Sam said, looking away and rubbing a hand up through his hair.

Dean, having regained control of most of his brain, grinned widely. He had missed Sam's input, his affinity for the job, and the working partnership they'd just been starting to develop when he'd left; more than he cared to admit. Not to mention the fact that he absolutely loved that brooding, serious expression he got on his face whenever he got really into whatever he was researching. That always prompted gentle kisses running down the back of his neck, then hands gripping his hips hard enough to leave bruises, then Dean growling the filthiest things he could think of into his ear in increasingly-desperate efforts to get him away from the books and into bed.

He got a grip on himself when he realized that Sam was almost certainly going to make that face soon, and he couldn't touch him when he did.

"Kinda like riding a bike, isn't it?" he asked approvingly. Sam just shook his head slightly, looking distant.

"You can talk to people around town while I'm at the library," he said, heading for the door. "Use one of those fake badges Dad made."

Dean wasn't anywhere near as stupid as most of his teachers had assumed he was, and it only took him about a second to realize that this was almost wholly an excuse for Sam to get away from him. He did his best to pretend it didn't hurt as much as it actually did as he pushed himself to his feet and raised his eyebrows.

"Interrogation really works better with two men, Sammy," he said, and the nickname was out before he could even stop it.

Sam stopped dead, slowly turning to face him. And, for a second, Dean thought he saw something a whole lot softer than the usual hatred and disgust in his eyes, something wounded and shy and loving that reminded him of the best times they'd had together, something that hurt and wanted just as much as he did. But he must have imagined it, because, in a deadly-calm voice that was seething with rage under the surface, his brother snapped out, "It's 'Sam,' Dean. Just 'Sam.' 'Sammy' was the twelve-year-old who spread 'em for you every time you told him to because he didn't know any better."

Dean wished that he'd just start kicking him between the legs or something instead of saying these things, because, honestly, that would probably hurt less. He hated his dick brother for taking away the one thing in his life that wasn't horrifying or fleeting or dull inevitable, and he hated himself for not having the balls to grab Sam and throw him against the wall as hard as he could. He wasn't sure what he'd do with him once he was there, though. If he'd hit him until he bled or kiss him until he was gasping for air.

"I'm sorry." And he was, but only that he still felt so much for him when it obviously wasn't returned. So he could keep stabbing at him and watching him bleed and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.

All he could do was follow him out, wanting to reach out and hold him and make that soft thing come back, knowing he couldn't, trying to content himself with remembering when he could.

* * *

Mid-August, 1988

* * *

When Dean burst through the unlocked door of the motel room, he expected a pack of werewolves to charge, snarling, at him. A contingent of revenants to fall on his skull with a chorus of moans, Black Dogs to look up from his brother's mangled body and howl mournfully. But nothing like that greeted him. What he got instead was a seemingly-empty room and the quiet, shaky snuffles of a five-year-old who knew he wasn't supposed to cry but had been pushed way too far to be able help it.

All of his aggression drained away even as the crying abruptly stopped, the opening of the door apparently startling its source into silence. He closed the door quietly behind him, stepping into the room and softly calling, "Sammy?"

There was no response for a couple of seconds, and then a tiny, broken voice that he could barely even associate with his bright, upbeat little brother timidly asked, "Dean?"

He walked into the room, past the little dining area and right up next to their bed, the one closest to the door. Sammy was sitting on the floor on the other side of it, legs drawn up to his chest and face resting against his knees. When Dean approached, he raised his head, and Dean's stomach dropped into his sneakers. There was something thick and dark in his hair, on his clothes, spattered across his face, and there wasn't enough light in the room to tell if it was mud or blood or something worse. One of his eyes was almost swollen shut, and he looked utterly miserable.

"Oh, my God." Dropping into a crouch right in front of Sammy, Dean automatically reached for him, demanding, "What the hell happened?"

Sammy didn't immediately move towards him, like he expected him to. He just pressed his face against his knees again, squeezing fistfuls of his too-big jeans with his small hands. He muttered something about being called a freak during recess by some bigger boys, getting the words out between tiny, hiccupy sobs. They said his clothes were weird, he talked funny, he was a know-it-all and a shrimp and a bunch of other names he didn't feel like repeating. He'd done his best not to react, and that made them mad. When they pushed him into the mud, he fought back, and that made them madder. When he'd gone inside with a black eye and a split lip, he hadn't told his teacher who'd done it because (his childish reasoning came into play here) he figured he had enough problems without being labeled a snitch or a crybaby. And then he came home.

Finishing up his story, Sammy started crying again, in earnest. Dean felt like a pot ready to boil over, so furious he could hardly think straight. He wanted to track down the kids who had done this, make them hurt like they had made Sammy hurt. He didn't care that they were just kindergarteners. He was madder than he could ever remember being in his entire life, and the only thing that kept him from jumping to his feet and heading out to mete out a little justice was the urge to comfort his brother. And the knowledge that revenge probably wasn't the best way to do that.

He knelt, legs spread wide to give Sam room to get right up against him, and opened his arms again. This time, Sammy immediately took him up on the unspoken offer, pushing away from the bed and pressing himself against Dean with a heartbreaking little sound of comfort. He clutched his shirt, sobbing into his chest as Dean put his arms around him and held him as tight as he could without hurting him. He stroked Sammy's hair with one hand, rubbing soothingly between his shoulder blades with the other, and knew that he'd made the right decision, staying here and doing this. Sam didn't hate like he did, didn't get nearly as angry, hadn't had the concept of revenge drummed into him by Dad. He was a little kid who'd just had his very first taste of how the world and almost everyone in it was gonna try to hurt him, and being held while he cried out all his shock and pain was probably better for him than getting back at the guys who pushed him down and called him names.

Dean was too young to think about it now, but, years later, he would realize that Sam didn't even remember them. The only guy who stuck out in his memory of that time was the one who'd come rushing home to touch and talk softly and make everything better.

"Shh, shh, Sammy," Dean murmured. "It's okay. It's gonna be okay." He stood up, pulling Sammy to his feet, too, and keeping his arms loosely around him. "C'mon. Let's get you cleaned up."

He led him to the bathroom, undressing him while he sniffled and wiped embarrassedly at his eyes, then stripped himself without a second thought. They'd been showering together for as long as he could remember. It saved time, and Dad always seemed happy that he didn't have to help Sam wash his hair or whatever.

Leaving their clothes on the bathroom floor, Dean turned on the water, then guided his little brother under the hot spray before following him. He kept his hands above both their waists, just focusing on washing the mud out of Sammy's hair and off his face, letting him lean against him for support as he dabbed at every new bruise and minor cut he found on him. He was pretty sure that most of them hadn't actually come from today, but it still made him mad. He did his best to hide that, making Sammy tilt his head back so he wouldn't get soap in his eyes, smiling reassuringly as, slowly, he stopped crying. When all the soap had been washed out of his hair and off his skin, he sat down, looking exhausted. Dean was just getting ready to hustle him out of the shower and into bed when he looked up at him and asked, "Why aren't we normal?"

Dean blinked. "What?"

"How come we don't have a house like everyone else does? Or a mom?" Sam seemed oblivious when Dean flinched at the vague mention of their mother. "And Dad's never home, and he always tells you to take care of me, and you and him always put salt in the windows and in front of the door whenever we stay someplace."

He took a deep breath of the steamy air, crouching down so they were on the same level, more or less. He hadn't been expecting this question, but he knew that he probably should have been. As adamant as Dad was about keeping Sammy in the dark about what exactly he did, and as much as Dean agreed with him, the kid wasn't stupid. They were going to have to explain everything to him sooner or later, but...not now. Instead of telling the truth or thinking up some elaborate lie, Dean reached out to cup his face with one hand, noting that his eye was less swollen now.

"I don't know," he said softly, shaking his head. "But, y'know, this _is _normal, for us...and it could be a whole lot worse." He reached out with his other hand and pulled Sammy closer. "You're not a freak. They were just assholes."

"I'm not normal," Sam protested weakly.

"Fine. Then you're _my _freak." Hesitantly, Dean leaned down, and planted a quick, shy kiss on his brother's forehead. Kissing was okay, right? Kissing just meant love. And Sammy seemed to like it, judging by the way his eyes fluttered closed and he moved so that his bare chest pressed against Dean's. "And I don't care if you're not normal."

He knew what he wanted to do, and, heart beating fast, he kissed Sammy on the lips. And pulled away just as quickly as he'd touched his mouth to his baby brother's, so that it was really more of a peck. Convincing himself that he was just showing him he loved him, and he wasn't doing anything wrong, he cupped the back of Sammy's head and kissed him again. He held it longer this time, closing his eyes and holding him tightly, feeling his confusion and excitement and pleasure. This was okay. Sammy kissed back, his movements clumsy but intimate enough to make Dean shiver under the spray of hot water. Dean wouldn't be embarrassed even if Dad walked in on them right now.

Actually, no, that was a lie. He would be extremely embarrassed, and terrified of his reaction. He didn't want their dad to see him and Sammy kissing, and he hadn't even wanted him to know about what they'd been doing with each other before now, and he wasn't sure why. That scared him.

But Dad wasn't here right now. Dean leaned back against the tiled wall, crossing his legs Indian-style, then pulled Sam up so he was sitting in his lap. His legs wrapped automatically around his waist, and he braced his hands against his chest while Dean held him. Dean hesitated before kissing him again, unable to stop himself from thinking about actual, man-and-woman couples he'd seen, doing this, Dad with whatever woman he was about to disappear with until the morning. Love that wasn't exactly...brotherly. His grip on Sammy loosened, and, for the first time, he felt doubt about what they were doing. He wasn't sure it actually was okay.

"Ready to get out?" Dean asked, his uncertainty fueling the question. Sammy shook his head, leaning in to clumsily press his mouth against his older brother's, begging for deeper contact without saying a word. And that was enough to completely get rid of any inhibitions Dean had. At least, for the moment.

He kissed back, grip tightening again, and trailed his mouth down onto Sammy's neck, his chest, kissing down onto his stomach and making him giggle. Dean didn't protest when he took one hand off his chest and reached down between them, to gently run a hand over his cock, and returned the favor as soon as he started to stiffen. Keeping Sam as close as he could, he kissed him again, moaning a little against his mouth, and didn't break away until he did.

"You like this?" Dean asked, breathing heavily, pleasure shooting through his body and every part of him begging for more. Sammy, hands still on his brother's cock and doing exactly what he'd learned would feel best for him, nodded. He probably had no idea that Dean was just doing what felt good, what some instinct behind the pleasure urged him to, and that he'd stop in a second if he thought that Sammy wasn't enjoying it as much as he was.

He still wasn't sure about this anymore. But they'd already started; he saw no harm in finishing up.

Hours later, when they had both finished with each other, cleaned up a second time, and toweled off, Dean lay tangled together with Sammy. Their arms were wrapped around each other, their legs crossed over one another's, and Sam's head, hair still damp, rested on his chest. He sighed in contentment, burrowing a little deeper into him, and Dean closed his eyes.

"Do I have to go back to school tomorrow?" Sammy asked sleepily. Dean opened his eyes; he'd thought he'd fallen asleep.

"Yeah." He paused. "I'm sorry."

"...will you come with me?"

"I'm sorry, Sammy. I don't think I can."

"Oh." He sounded disappointed, but not surprised. "Will you come and get me after school?"

"'Course I will."

"And you'll stay with me?"

"Yeah."

"Always?"

"Yeah." Dean didn't even hesitate for a second before saying it. "Always. I promise." He nuzzled into his damp hair. "Whether you want me to or not."


	5. Chapter 5

**I'm not actually all that familiar with what microfilm is...or how it works.**

**I've never used it, and the internet is rather vague when it comes to it.**

**Though, considering that I've never been to Lake City, Nevada, either, and I don't know if there's actually an abandoned military base there, I think I'm good.**

* * *

Sam grimaced down at the badge that Dean had just slapped into his hand, going out of his way not to accidentally touch him. He would have almost appreciated how careful he was not to so much as brush his fingers against his, if he hadn't done it in an over-exaggerated way that was probably meant to make him feel like an idiot. But he decided against flipping out at Dean again, because, this time, he hadn't really crossed any of the lines Sam had been drawing.

"This doesn't even look like me," he complained, surprised at how normal his voice came out. Like the awkward walk to the car after his response to Dean's (almost certainly accidental) use of his nickname hadn't just happened. "When did you even make it?"

"Dad made it right before you, uh, went on shore leave," Dean replied, glossing over what Sam couldn't believe had already become an awkward subject. "Same as my first set. Which, by the way, got updated a couple weeks back. Did it myself."

He held up what Sam, after a few seconds of examination, realized was a federal marshal's badge. It featured a picture of Dean with respectably-combed hair and a bored, heavy-lidded expression. It also said that his last name was Walsh.

"You never got to use yours, though," he added, shoving the badge into a pocket of his jacket. "Dad wanted to get rid of 'em, but I told him that you'd need them when you came back. He drew the line at updating the pictures, though, because...well, y'know, we didn't have any pictures of you after that one."

"Always wondered what he wanted that picture for," Sam muttered, looking at the image of himself two years ago, just barely twenty. His cheekbones had gotten more prominent since then, the rigid set of his shoulders had relaxed a little, and (he almost rolled his eyes at the ridiculously short cut he was sporting in the photo) his hair had grown out. And that hurt in his eyes, the anger and guilt and self-loathing that made his expression so stony...he'd learned how to lock that away.

Dean's casual, unfailing faith that he was going to come back someday bothered him. In a way he couldn't really identify. He could see him vividly, valiantly protecting fake badges with his little brother's picture on them, even after their father had long since lost his patience with the belief that they were gonna see him again. And it...hurt, like getting a bullet cut out of an infected wound or stretching a pulled muscle right after it healed. A good pain.

Sam shook those feelings out of his head, pocketing the badge reluctantly and resigning himself to flashing it at people, because he knew they didn't have the time to replace the picture with a more recent one. He rolled his shoulders, so his hoodie and the T-shirt underneath fell right on his torso, and stuffed his hands into his pockets.

"So," he said, taking a deep breath and then exhaling loudly. "What now?"

"Research, which you can be in charge of," Dean replied, pulling open the door of the Impala and dropping into the driver's seat. "I bet you're pretty good at stuff like this, by now."

Sam joined him, shutting the door and tucking his long legs up underneath the dashboard. "No terrorizing the townspeople?" There may have been more of an edge to his voice than was necessary.

"Not until we know which townspersons to terrorize," Dean said, starting the engine and pulling out. "Guess you're rustier than I thought, Sa...Sam." He paused, both of them completely ignoring his verbal stumble, then said, "'Townspersons.' Is that a word?"

Sam smiled before he could help it, glancing out the window to get a feel for Lake City. He found himself thinking that, maybe, they could do this. Like, really, actually do this - finish whatever hunt their father had been on, find him (or at least find out what'd happened to him) so they could get back to their lives, and treat each other like partners or normal brothers the whole time. Despite the fact that he still felt so much anger, directed at both himself and his brother, burning in his belly, stirring every time he looked at Dean, threatening to break through...he could deal with that. He was good at shoving down memories, emotions, stuff like that, and he could _make this work._ For his own sake, at least, so he didn't end up with a mouthful of broken teeth and two black eyes after lashing out at Dean one too many times...no matter how much he may deserve it.

The thought made him happier than he'd been since he figured out the guy he was wrestling in his apartment was Dean, and he felt a sudden urge to call Jess, tell her what he'd realized. But, obviously, he couldn't.

When Dean pulled up at the library, Sam immediately unfolded his lanky frame from the passenger side, his fragile hope that he could make it through this without another trauma-inducing confrontation giving him new energy. Dean walked beside him, keeping a comfortable distance, as they headed into the library, an old, squat, solid building that looked like it could have been part of the Army base they had come to research. It was bigger on the inside than he had expected, and they wandered aimlessly through the aisles, one of them secretly delighted by the vast number of books and the other cursing under his breath. They had made it through Fiction and Mythology before a librarian noticed them and came over to ask them if they needed any help, with the Look on her face.

The "Look" was something that Sam had silently named back when he was about seventeen. It varied from person to person, based on their upbringing, their religious alignment, and their opinion on certain...alternative lifestyles, but, basically, it was the expression most people got on their faces when they saw two guys together. And didn't know them well enough to see the similar shapes of their eyes and the similar cuts to their chins and all the other marks of familial resemblance. The "Oh-gosh-a-gay-couple" Look. Which Sam had always hated and feared, worrying that that expression would turn into one of realization and then disgust. Besides - he had never considered Dean his boyfriend, or anything like that.

Dean, on the other hand, hadn't really seemed to care. In fact, he'd almost seemed to welcome the Look, the proof that other people could tell that he and Sam belonged to each other completely. When he noticed his younger brother getting nervous or self-conscious, he'd put an arm around him, murmur encouragement into his ear...maybe even pull him into a kiss.

Sam forcibly ripped himself out of his thoughts, just in time to hear the librarian - Look still firmly in place - tell them that there was a room in the back where they could look at the microfilm that old editions of the local newspaper were stored on. She smiled when he politely thanked her, and the smile got a lot wider and turned into a blush when Dean gave her a suggestive grin and said she should meet him in that room after hours. Even though, in Sam's opinion, she really wasn't that attractive.

It got rid of the Look, at least. But it made Sam's stomach hurt, vaguely, with some pain he couldn't really identify the source of - not that he was sure he wanted to. He had a faint urge to smack Dean upside the head for flirting like that, right in front of him, but...why? Why did he feel this way? He wasn't _his _anymore, he'd put an end to that and very nearly gotten rid of all the horrifically-unnatural feelings that came with it. He felt a sudden surge of desperate anger that, because they were in public, he quelled just as fast. _Goddammit._ This shouldn't be happening...but he had more important things to focus on than feeling a little possessive of the guy who was, for all intents and purposes, his ex.

"Microfilm," Dean muttered, watching Sam flip through the records and set up the scanner and viewing station with the air of a professional returning to his area of expertise after a long absence. He leaned against the door. "Jesus. I thought this was 2005 - I was sick of this stuff back in the nineties."

"What year was the base abandoned?" Sam asked, as if he hadn't spoken. He shrugged.

"Damned if I know."

"Okay..." _Wonder if he's finally pissed at me._ "Ah. 'Seventy-two to 'seventy-three. Let's just try this."

He got everything in order, working with the machines reminding him of his childhood more than he was comfortable with. The first image that popped up was one of the front page of a newspaper, dated January 24, 1972. Interestingly enough, eight years to the day before Dean was born, but he didn't feel like sharing that. Instead, he focused on the headline: _Friday__ Marks One-Year Anniversary of Devastating Base Fire._

"Huh."

"Well, that was sure convenient..."

Sitting down on one of the fragile-looking chairs that had been apparently banished to this room, resting his forearms on his thighs and clasping his hands together between his knees, Sam ignored the way that the back of his neck almost burned, with Dean so close behind and looking at him. He wanted to say something to him, make him cut it out...but, instead, began to read out loud: "'One year ago, this Friday, a fire broke out at the Fort MacArthur military base and destroyed many of the buildings before it could be contained. Among the lives claimed in the blaze were those of Private Elias Nakota, Private Robert Dawson, and Colonel Jake Moon. Last year, we interviewed Colonel Moon's widow, Rebecca Moon, who had just given birth to a son...'" He stopped, and looked back at Dean, feeling a little better once he could see that he hadn't moved. "Okay. This Rebecca woman seems like a good place to start. Maybe her husband's haunting the base or something."

"Yeah, let's go look her up. Make sure she's still alive." Dean pushed of the door, tugging it open and waiting for Sam to go first. When he passed him, reluctantly, he flashed him a grin that was almost vulnerable, eyes grateful and tentatively happy. "Great to have ya back."

Sam looked away and kept walking without a word.

* * *

The official residence of Rebecca Moon was a ramshackle, one-story house, yard dead and multiple red-gray shingles missing. The walkway leading up to the porch was cracked, and weathered duct tape criss-crossed several of the dusty windows. The burned-out shape of the base, surrounded by a rusting fence hung all over with anti-trespassing signs, was visible in the distance. Sam checked his pocket as he climbed out of the Impala, making sure the fake badge with its outdated picture was still there. It was, which made him feel marginally better. He squared his shoulders. He'd never actually done this before, flashed a badge that looked nearly real and talked his way into somebody's house. Sure, he'd lied about who and what he was before. All the time. Even to Jess. But the badge...well, that was different. He figured he just had to get past that initial lie, though, and then he'd be fine, because he knew how to handle witnesses. He knew exactly which questions to ask, how to read body language, when to push and when to hold back.

There was a slightly different element to it this time, sure. But, thinking about it, he realized that all of his concerns were pretty trivial.

"Are you sure we shouldn't've...I don't know...rented suits? Or something?" he asked, looking at the house as Dean locked the car and joined him.

"Nah. You only need suits if you're pretending to be FBI agents, or lawyers, or something like that," Dean assured him. "You don't have to dress up to be a marshal." Seeing Sam's slightly-skeptical expression, he shot him a quick smile. "Trust me on this. Me and Dad have got this whole thing down to a science."

He rapped sharply on the weathered door, which was just barely white in a few spots and the feathery gray of exposed wood everywhere else. Shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans, he rocked back on his heels, and Sam touched his badge. Getting ready to pull it out. He heard footsteps on the other side of the door, boards creaking, and, just before it opened, Dean quietly said, "But, y'know, I think you'd look real good in a suit."

And then he had a comically-professional expression on his face as he whipped out his badge, saying "Good afternoon, ma'am, federal marshals, Walsh and Williams..." Sam copied his movements immediately, unable to respond to what he'd said. Or even figure out if he should be mad or not, because he had to look at who they'd be interrogating soon. He had to focus on the case, the job, so he could get home as soon as possible. Back to Jess, away from Dean.

The small, gray-haired woman who had answered the door was most definitely not what he had been expecting, after seeing how neglected her house was. Her gray hair was drawn back into a neat, precise bun, and her sharp features were outlined with a tasteful amount of makeup. He could tell she'd been pretty, really pretty, once, and thought of Jess for a second. Her pink blouse and gray skirt were crisp and clean, and the only thing that could even remotely mark her as the owner of the house she was in were the ragged sneakers on her feet. They looked like the sort of shoes someone would wear if they didn't plan on leaving the house that day but didn't want to go barefoot.

She peered at Dean with clear gray eyes, then Sam, frowning. Putting one hand on her hip, she asked, "You're here about Lucas?"

"Uh." Dean glanced at Sam; he reflexively looked away. "Who?"

"My son." Her mouth tightened slightly, but that was the only change in her expression. "He's been missing for two weeks."

"Okay. Well." Dean looked at Sam again, obviously searching for help, but Sam just couldn't return the eye contact. "We actually came to talk to you about your husband."

"Jake?" She raised an eyebrow. "He's been buried thirty-five years, gentlemen. Any crimes he was involved in - and, having known him, I don't imagine there were many - must not be worth investigating anymore."

"You'd be surprised," Dean told her, with a smile only Sam knew him well enough to tell was strained. "Can we come in?"

Mrs. Moon crossed her arms over her chest, regarding him with a very suspicious look as she said, "I don't think so."

Sam had the feeling they were about to get the cops called on them, which wasn't something he wanted to happen. And he just couldn't help the fact that, deep down, in some part of himself that was still five years old and clueless about proper boundaries between siblings, he hated seeing Dean squirm like this - especially when there was already so much pressure on him. So he spoke up, driven by something that felt like instinct born of nights sparring in graveyards and his dad running through the different types of ghosts with him and automatically lying to every teacher, friend, and school counselor he'd ever had about what his family situation was.

And being held so tightly when he was hurting, and waking up with all four of Dean's limbs wrapped comfortingly around him, and tender words right when he needed to hear them...but he did his best not to think about any of that. And told himself that the fluttering in his stomach was nausea, even though he knew it wasn't

"We know several people have disappeared around the base," he began, in the sympathetic, reasonable voice that he always used on Jess whenever they were having an argument. "We didn't know one of them was your son - and I'm sorry, because this has to be difficult for you. But we need to learn more about the base and the people who worked there, so we can figure out what's going on."

Mrs. Moon looked him up and down, but the blatant suspicion was gone. She stepped back, giving them just enough room to enter her house one-by-one, and grudgingly said, "All right. Come in, then."

Sam let Dean go first, mostly because he didn't trust him behind him, then followed him. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he was aware that his gait and manner of moving changed when he stepped into the house. His movements became more fluid, the loud clomping of his bootsteps softening to something much quieter. He wasn't anywhere near silent - once you got to a certain size (which he was well past), that just wasn't feasible anymore. But still. He was walking like a hunter again.

The inside of Mrs. Moon's house was a whole lot like its owner: a stark contrast to the outside. Everything was extremely clean, neat, and well-kept, if dated. Sam observed vaguely-floral wallpaper, beige carpet that just might be the original, and bubble-like lighting fixtures. There were very few knickknacks besides what looked like a few family photos hanging on the walls, and all the furniture was compact and lightweight. He thought it looked like the home of someone who had to move often and had learned to be ready for it, though Mrs. Moon had to have lived here for over thirty years.

She led them out of the short, narrow hall that was the entryway, into what had to be the living room. Waving them towards a fuzzy-looking green couch, she shuffled a few feet in the direction of what looked like a small, open kitchen area.

"Can I get you anything?" she asked. Her tone was perfectly polite, but Sam got the feeling that she really didn't want to have to give them anything.

"No, we're fine. Thank you," he said with a quick smile, speaking before Dean could. He lowered himself onto the couch, which was really more like a loveseat; when his brother sat down next to him, their hips touched. Prompting a sudden explosion of silent anger inside Sam. He forced himself not to jump up and just stand, despite the fact that the contact sent lightning bolts through him. Even though there were two layers of denim between their bare skin. But he drew the line and moved his legs - the fact that they were in the company of a perfect stranger weighing heavily on his mind - when Dean splayed his knees so their thighs were pressed together. Maybe he'd done it on purpose, maybe he hadn't. All Sam knew was that a sudden, desperate need hit him - for deeper contact, for constant contact. And he clenched his jaw and leaned forward, hunched over to try and hide the raging hard-on he was pretty sure he'd be developing soon, hating, more than anything, that his body still reacted this way.

_Think about Jess, think about Jess...it's almost normal that way._

"So," Mrs. Moon started. "What do you want to know about Jake?"

She lowered herself into an armchair across from them, glancing at a framed, black-and-white picture on a nearby side table as she spoke. It featured a woman in her late teens or early twenties, whom Sam immediately recognized as a younger version of Mrs. Moon, beaming next to a tall, light-haired man with fine features and serious eyes. Almost certainly her late husband.

"Well, we know he died in a fire..." Dean began. Giving him a look that made it clear she still didn't like him, she nodded.

"That's right. We didn't even have a body to bury. There was nothing left."

_Can't salt and burn the bones to get rid of the problem, then, _Sam thought. He knew Dean was trying to catch his eye, to convey that he was thinking exactly the same thing, but he kept looking straight ahead. At the old woman across from him.

"Any idea what started it?" he asked, and she just shook her head.

"Faulty wiring...an unattended cigarette," she said. "Some stupid mistake. To be honest, I don't really care anymore."

Sam clasped his hands together and looked down at them, sighing through his nose. This line of questioning wasn't really getting them anywhere.

"How about you tell us about Lucas's disappearance?" he suggested, looking up. Mrs. Moon hesitated, looking at another picture on that same side table. This one was in color, of a man in his mid-thirties. He guessed that it was Lucas; he seemed to take after his mother. He had gray eyes, thick, dark-brown hair a few shades lighter than Sam's own, and a thin but strangely charming smile.

"He came to re-shingle the roof, two weeks ago," she replied slowly. "He brought his friend with him. Calvin. I'm old enough now that I can either take care of the inside of the house, take care of the outside, or let them both look mediocre. And I use the inside a lot more than I do the outside." _(Ah, _thought Sam, some part of him satisfied to have an explanation.) "Lucas helps when he can, and he always brings Calvin...they're such good friends. Very affectionate with each other. But, this time, they had a fight - I don't remember what it was about - and Lucas went down the road to get some more nails. He never came back." She paused. "The police found his car, abandoned, near the fence around the base. They just barely gave it back to me."

"And nothing else strange happened?" Sam asked.

"You didn't see anything...weird? Freaky?" Dean pressed. Mrs. Moon leaned back in her chair, considering.

"Well. Now that you mention it," she began carefully, "there was the oddest cloud in the sky that evening, right before Lucas left. It looked like black smoke."

* * *

"Well...that was kinda useless," Dean muttered, hands in his pockets as he led the way down the cracked walkway and back to the Impala. "We learned...let's see, pretty much nothing. Except that there was some black smoke. What does black smoke signify, anyway? Isn't there some creature that looks like black smoke?"

Sam shrugged. A second after he did, he realized that Dean wouldn't have been able to see the gesture, with his back to him. But it didn't seem to matter.

_"Some_thing does, I know it. I just can't put my finger on it." Dean stopped, just feet from the sidewalk, right next to Mrs. Moon's unattached garage. Sam stopped beside him, standing in the patchy dead grass because there wasn't really enough room for him to stand and be comfortable on the decaying concrete. "Gimme a minute here."

"She said the police gave Lucas's car back to her," Sam said, knowing he was breaking the near-complete silence Dean needed to think and not really caring. "Maybe there's something in there."

"Well...that it?" Dean nodded to a slightly-battered, forest-green Honda parked in the driveway, which was in about the same condition as the walkway. Sam had noticed it on the way in, but hadn't thought much about it. Looking closer now, he saw a bit of bright-yellow police tape caught in one of the doors. Like the car was evidence that had been returned after it was completely combed over. His first instinct was to go over, see if it was unlocked, start searching for clues if it was...but he hesitated. He wasn't sure he was okay with crawling around in the car of some poor old woman's missing son, especially when she'd been nothing but polite to them.

Dean, apparently, just didn't have the same inhibitions. He did a quick three-sixty, to make sure no one was nearby and Mrs. Moon wasn't looking out the window or something, then shrugged and made a beeline for the car when he saw the coast was clear, leaving Sam standing awkwardly in the grass. He watched as he tried the handle on the passenger side, then spun around with a wide grin when the door popped open.

"Bingo! Unlocked."

Suppressing a sigh, Sam joined him as he leaned in, sweeping one hand judiciously over the part of the dashboard he could reach and the other over the pale-gray seat. He looked underneath, muttering something derogatory towards modern cars under his breath, and Sam poked his head in to peer into the back seat. Suddenly, before he could react, Dean straightened slightly, and his back pressed against Sam's chest.

Both of them froze. Dean because he knew he'd done something he wasn't supposed to, probably (it was just a guess - Sam honestly couldn't care less what Dean was thinking right now). Sam because he'd _told _him not to touch him, he didn't _want _to be touched - and, yet, for some reason, he wasn't pulling away. Like he should. There was fabric between them - two T-shirts, his hoodie, Dean's jacket - but he could still feel the heat of his brother's body. True, the Nevada sun was beating down on him, starting to make him wish he'd opted for lighter clothing, but Dean's warmth was different. It went deeper, soothed aches he hadn't even known he had, made him _remember_. When this position - his chest against Dean's back - had been commonplace, especially as he got taller and developed a sudden fondness for hugging him from behind.

He could smell him, that leather-sweat-vanilla scent that used to mean home and love and comfort and a million other things he needed and couldn't find anywhere else. He wanted to wrap his arms around him, pull him up, bury his face in his short hair and just...hold him. Fit their bodies together and hope that he'd be able to find a cure for the agony that he'd somehow managed to ignore for more than two years.

And he might've, if his father's voice, angry and disgusted and shocked, hadn't exploded into his mind. Straight out of his memories.

_For God's sake, don't _touch _him like that - _

Sam jerked back, banging his head on the roof of the car as he did so, adrenaline flooding his system. Breathing hard, he closed his eyes tight for just a second and forced Jess into his head. Blonde hair, narrow waist, long legs...female, not related to him, safe. He could still feel the bumps of Dean's spine, a burning trail on his stomach.

Dean straightened up completely, glancing at him over his shoulder, but he didn't say anything. He turned his attention back to the car before Sam could tell what he was feeling from his expression. Was he pissed at him for acting like a brother should? Turned on by the contact? Or did he feel like Sam did, wanting him in a way that wasn't even entirely sexual and beating himself up inside for feeling something so twisted?

Sam told himself he didn't care (and was immediately irritated with Dean for the fact that it wasn't true), and moved around to the driver's side of the car, yanking the door open. He leaned in, planting one hand on the seat to support himself while he looked around, and, on a whim, flipped the sun visor down. He immediately regretted it. The distinctive smell of rotten eggs filled the interior of the car as a fine powder rained down into his hair, and he jerked back for the second time in as many minutes, shaking his head reflexively and squeezing his eyes shut so none of it would get in them.

"Oh, _crap - "_ He swiped his hands through his hair, grimacing as his mind automatically jumped to conclusions about powdered snake venom and cocaine and poisonous pollen from some sort of plant monster.

"Whoa, hey. Calm down. You're okay." He heard a few rapid footsteps as Dean rushed over to stand in front of him. "What is it?"

Very reluctantly, Sam opened his eyes a crack, and looked down at the dust on his hands. It was yellow. He blinked, and the odor finally hit home, along with a realization that made dread settle into the pit of his stomach beside all the rage and hatred.

"Sulfur."

Dean exhaled heavily, crossing his arms over his chest and suddenly looking exhausted.

"Well, shit. It's a demon."

"Jesus," Sam said quietly, and meant it. He'd already suspected it, but hearing Dean say it just made it that much more real. "When's the last time we went after a demon?"

"I don't know." Dean reached up to unconsciously rub the back of his head. "I was...uh...like, nine, maybe? Or ten. Dad made us stay in the room with salt at every entrance - even gave us iron pokers. Just in case it got past the salt. God, he was really freaked out, which meant I was really freaked out, which...heh...meant _you _were really freaked out, and...I..." He trailed off into awkward silence before Sam even had to say a word, the memory of what it had been like for them, locked in a motel room together...what they'd done...burning like acid in Sam's mind and making Dean's eyes glassy with sudden recollection. Out of the blue, he cleared his throat, the noise too loud and awkward. "They're rare. Seemed like even Dad didn't know too much about 'em, except that they're real nasty and hard to kill."

"Great," Sam muttered, brushing the sulfur on his hands off onto the thighs of his jeans. "Well..." He sighed deeply, turning towards the road and the Impala. "It's getting late. We'd better grab some dinner, head back to the motel, try to...sleep." He suppressed a grimace brought on by the thought of sleeping in the same room as Dean. "We can do more research tomorrow. I just don't really want to go up against this thing when we're tired and clueless."

"That's a plan I can get behind." Dean walked up beside him, half leading him to the car, half walking with him. "Wait a second, Sam...you've still got some sulfur in your hair..."

When he touched him, it was perfectly casual. Just running his fingers through the fringe of his hair to get the stinking powder out, fingertips barely even brushing his scalp - nothing sexual or suggestive about it at all. But parts of Sam were still reeling from the contact they'd had in Lucas's car, and memories of his father's opinion of their relationship were still at the forefront of his brain, and he honestly couldn't help it when he spun and shoved Dean away from him as hard as he could, a furious snarl ripping its way out of him before he could stop it.

Apparently, "as hard as he could" was pretty damn hard, because Dean all but flew backwards, landing on his ass almost ten feet away. Actual pain, as much physical as it was emotional, flickered across his face for a second, and he grunted, chest heaving like he'd had the wind knocked out of him. Sam's stomach dropped, all his searing, fiery emotions draining away as he realized that he'd gone too far. He took an automatic step forward, reaching out with both hands to maybe help him up or something, and he stumbled over the words as he blurted, "I - I'm sorr - "

He was cut off when Dean shot to his feet, hands curling into fists so tight his knuckles paled, expression thunderous. Sam froze, staring at him. He was trembling with what had to be rage, jaw set, eyes intense - and full of real, shocking, near-corporeal _hate. _He wanted to hurt him, just as bad as he could - that was painfully obvious. The realization was like a punch in the gut for Sam. Had this been what Dean saw when he looked at him last night? Today? Hostility so strong it could barely even be considered a human emotion?

Sam waited for the first blow to come, and, for a second, he was pretty sure he'd just stand there and take it. But Dean didn't move. He had to want to - hell, judging by the look on his face, he would like nothing better than to disembowel Sam with his fingernails. But he just stood there, shaking a little, hands clenched into fists, glaring and breathing hard and keeping his shoulders straight and square.

And then he just...relaxed. The tension seemed to go out of him - he opened his hands, his shoulders slumped. But the hatred didn't leave his eyes. Sam wondered if he hadn't wanted to start a fight on Mrs. Moon's front lawn, if he hadn't been able to bring himself to hit him...or if he had just decided that he wasn't worth it.

"I'm sorry," he said again, weakly, as Dean stalked over to the Impala and ripped open the door on the driver's side. He glanced up.

"I don't actually give a rat's ass if you're 'sorry' or not," he said, with a sharp, twisted smile just as hard as iron. "I just don't care, Sam. I just wanna finish this Goddamn case so you can run back to your school and your girlfriend and I never have to see your sorry ass again. And vice-versa."

With that, he ducked into the car, slamming the door hard enough to make the frame rattle. Sam stood numbly in the dead grass for a few seconds, then walked over, stiff-legged, and joined his brother. He looked at him out of the corners of his eyes as he started the engine with a blank expression on his face, and wanted to hate him. But the only feeling he could summon right now was a dull ache that went so deep inside of him, he wasn't even sure where it ended.


	6. Chapter 6

**Updates may be a little unpredictable from here on out, seeing as I started school and don't have all day to write anymore.**

**But don't let that stop you from reviewing, considering that getting one sort of makes my day.**

**Once again, a huge thanks to decemberdove, the veritable mother of this story and, some days, the only reason I'm still writing it.**

* * *

"Salt. Iron. Holy water...basically, what we knew already..." Sam murmured, tapping rapidly at the keyboard of his laptop and flicking his eyes over the screen scanning for the major points of the article he had pulled up, on a site that proudly touted itself as having information vital to any demon hunter, instead of actually reading the whole thing. He stayed skeptical (especially because the writing was so pompous and grimly self-important), cross-checking constantly with what he already knew, other sites, and what few relevant books the library had. He knew that Dean didn't like using the internet for research, and neither had their father, but, sometimes, it really was the best source. But he definitely understood to take most of what he read with a grain of salt - ever since he'd gone after a banshee with a silver knife after reading on Wikipedia that it was the only effective way to kill one and it...well, it hadn't worked. "We can trap it - which might not be a good idea, because holy water dries and salt can be blown or washed away - or drive it off. Hurt it so bad it doesn't want to stick around anymore." He looked up from the screen of his laptop, looking at Dean, who was sitting across from him with a copy of _The Golden Bough_ in front of him. Scowling characteristically at a page he hadn't turned for the past twenty minutes. He was a slow reader, but...he wasn't _that _slow, Sam knew. "Are you listening to me?"

"Yep. Trap the demon or drive it away," Dean drawled, tone emotionless and clipped. He rubbed a hand over his face. There were dark circles under his eyes; he looked exhausted, and extremely pissed in a smoldering, bottled-up sort of way. He'd led the way into the library, and the local crowd had quickly gotten right out of his way. Sam hadn't looked in a mirror since last night, but he was pretty sure that he didn't look much better. "Got it."

Sam's throat tightened...but he wasn't sure why. Dean was actually leaving him alone, like he'd wanted, and he should be ecstatic that he wasn't smiling tenderly at him or touching him or trying to engage him in conversation every five minutes. And he _was _happy, there was just...something else, too. He returned his attention to his laptop, closing his burning, stinging eyes for a second and pressing his fingertips against them. He felt like something was missing, like something he needed desperately was gone, and he didn't know what it was. But he _hated _it.

_Well, hey, maybe I _do _know what it is, and I just don't wanna admit it to myself. Especially with him three feet away from me._

He crushed that thought, cringing a little because, maybe, it rang true. In some part of him. Propping his elbow on the fake-wood vinyl of the library table, Sam rested his forehead in his hand, automatically twisting his fingers through his hair. He told himself he only felt so weird because he'd had a rough night - dinner had been heavy and greasy, and, sitting across from a completely-silent Dean, he'd had to do his best not to gag, after spending two years with Jess and her health-food obsession (which, he realized, had now become _their _health-food obsession). Dean had walked into their room when they got back to it, thrown himself down on the bed, and been out like a light - though he must have been faking it, at least part of the time, judging by those bags under his eyes. Sam hadn't been able to sleep...so he'd called Jess again.

"Hello?" She sounded sleepy when she answered. Sam felt a stab of guilt; he tried to remember if he was in a different timezone than her, if he might've woken her up.

"Hey. It's me," he said quietly, sitting at the foot of his bed. Something in him made him keep hi voice low, so he didn't wake Dean.

"Sam!" She perked up exponentially. "How are you? Did you find your dad?"

"Uh...no." He had almost forgotten that they were supposed to be looking for their father, that that took precedence over even solving the demon problem at the base. "I'm fine. How did your day go?"

"I miss you," Jess said. Her voice was troubled. "Sam...are you going to be able to get home before Monday?"

Oh...God. His interview. It had, unbelievably, slipped his mind. He heaved out a massive sigh, reaching up to rub a hand over his eyes as his shoulders slumped with this new addition to the figurative weight on them. He'd had so much else to worry about, with his dad missing and this thing with the demon and the situation with Dean...and he'd forgotten he actually had even more.

"Yeah," he said, finally, wishing the word didn't sound quite so ragged when he said it. "Yeah. I'll make it, don't worry."

"Maybe...you could reschedule. If you haven't found your dad by tomorrow afternoon. You could explain it's a family emergency - "

"No," he interrupted. "Jess...don't worry. I can handle this. I'l be back in time to make my interview, I promise."

"Is your brother okay with that?"

"He doesn't care." Sam glanced over at Dean's prone form, feeling a sudden surge of anger towards him for, like he'd said, not caring about what he'd managed to do with his life in the two years since he'd last seen him. But he found himself unable to maintain it.

"Oh." She paused, and he could hear fabric rustling in the background. Like the sheets of their bed. Maybe he really had woken her up. "So...he's still doing okay, too?"

"He's mad at me," he said, without thinking, and mentally smacked himself. He couldn't believe he'd said that, brought it up - now she'd want to know why Dean was mad, and the reasons behind that were the absolute last thing he wanted to discuss with Jess.

_And why's that? _something in him asked. _Do you actually know...or are you just afraid that she'll react like Dad did?_

He shoved that thought down. Forcefully.

"Really? Why?"

"Well, he made me mad, and I - " He rubbed a hand over his face, up into his hair. "I...shoved him. I shouldn't have, and, y'know, I feel bad about it...I tried to apologize, but he's just pissed. He doesn't want to hear it."

There was a moment of silence, and he could almost hear her, disbelieving, thinking, _That's it? Really?_

But, of course, she hadn't seen it...and she didn't know.

"Well, you _did _say you guys don't really get along," Jess said finally, her tone sympathetic. Sam wasn't sure he wanted sympathy - at least, not from her.

"Yeah. We don't. I just..." He sighed again, dropping his head so that his chin practically rested on his collarbone. "I hate that he's mad at me, and that I...well, that I actually deserve it this time."

He'd been tired. Otherwise, he never would have said that, never would have felt that way. As it was, he internally yelled at himself the whole time Jess was assuring him that he and Dean would, eventually, patch things up. Sometimes, the furious voice in his head was his own; sometimes it was his father's.

He was in the right here. He'd made Dean stop touching him, and that was an accomplishment. He shouldn't feel bad, shouldn't be hurt by being given the cold shoulder, but...

Things would go back to normal once he got home and Dean was gone. He could look at the whole thing objectively again - actually, he wouldn't even have to think about it at all. Once they found their dad and got rid of the demon, it would be entirely over. That gave him some relief, to know that his emotions would start making some sense again soon, would start being safe and normal again. Not much, but some.

He'd said goodnight to Jess, told her he loved her and meant it. And then he'd tried to sleep...but he couldn't, not with Dean so close and his feelings so...complicated. He'd gotten maybe an hour or two of sleep, and he was used to seven. No wonder he felt so out of it this morning.

"So," Sam began now, forcing himself to focus. "We'd better go check out the base. I think we have everything we're gonna need, don't we?"

"Shouldn't we go when it's dark?" Dean replied, idly spinning the book in front of him on the slick vinyl of the table. "As a general rule, these sorts of creepy-crawlies tend to be a lot more active at night."

He sounded...disinterested. Sam couldn't tell if he preferred his not caring to last night's blatant hatred or not, but, hey, at least he was talking to him in completely sentences. Which meant they could work together, get this whole thing over with as fast as possible.

"We can't do that," Sam said, closing the lid of his laptop without bothering to turn it off first. He might need to look at the pages he had up later. "If I'm gonna get back in time for my law school interview - on Monday morning," he reminded him. "We have to leave before nightfall."

"'Nightfall'?" Dean raised an eyebrow. "Have you started writing poetry or something? Jesus."

Sam opened his mouth to defend himself, but Dean continued before he could say anything.

"If you're so worried about it, just...leave now," he said, not looking at him as he flipped his book closed and spun it more effectively. The hiss of the jacket against the table was starting to get on Sam's nerves. "Rent a car or hitch-hike or something. I don't really care. Just so long as you're not here, whining about how you absolutely have to get back to school for your lawyer-thing or whatever when I'm trying to gank something." He glanced off across the library, and frowned. "Man, I wish they allowed coffee in here. I could do with about a gallon of espresso right now."

Sam took a deep breath, wanting to stay calm, realizing that he probably wouldn't be able to. If his behavior up to this point was anything to go off of.

"Yeah, I have a life outside - this now," Sam said in a low voice, leaning forward. He'd almost said, "A life outside _you."_ "That doesn't mean I can't focus on the case. We can do what we need to and still hit the road on time."

"Focus on the case...right." Spinning the book faster, Dean smirked down at it, but there was no humor in the expression. "So. Were you..." He looked up, face carefully blank. "...'focusing on the case' when you called me a pedophile?"

Sam struggled to control the fierce, sudden rush of anger that crawled up his throat and all but made his vision skew, telling himself that he couldn't afford to sink to his level. But he felt a muscle in his jaw twitch anyway.

"I never called you a - "

"Well. Maybe not in so many words." Dean shrugged, smiling a little - the tight, crooked, ironic smile Sam knew meant he was hurt, angry. "But, don't worry, I got what you meant."

Sam glanced around, discreetly, without moving his head, before leaning forward and hissing, "Really? You want to do this now?"

"Can't think of a better place." Dean stopped spinning the book, mercifully, and turned around in his chair, making a show of examining the bottom of the bookcase behind him. "The bookcases are bolted to the floor. They won't tip over if you shove me into one."

"Look. I'm...I'm sorry about last night." And he actually was, but he wasn't sure how well that was coming through. "I shouldn't have done that. But finding Dad and finishing up this hunt - don't you think that's more important than this shit between us?"

"Do _you _think so?" Dean asked, going back to spinning the book. "It makes you sick to look at me, Sam. Freakin' _sick."_ He looked up, off into the distance, expression completely unreadable. "I touch you, anywhere at all, even for just a couple seconds, and you Hulk out on me. And don't think I can't tell how much you beat yourself up when you're around me." He spun it faster, wrist flicking rapidly, light glinting off the ring on his hand. Sam gritted his teeth. "Don't tell me we can hunt like this."

"We can. It's only for a day - less, actually." Sam felt his hands automatically clench into fists. "Look. Dean. You're making it worse right now. Let's just..." He swallowed, fighting desperately to control his emotions, because...he didn't want to start throwing punches in a library? He didn't want to hurt Dean again? He wasn't sure. "...try to treat each other civilly. Get through this without killing each other or bringing up anything that's...sensitive."

"Like your ass?" Dean asked without missing a beat, still spinning the book, his attention entirely taken up by that. Sam clenched his teeth so hard that that one tooth started aching again, and raked a hand through his hair, so roughly that he yanked out several dark-brown strands in the process. "What?" Dean asked, looking up and widening his eyes. "You _screamed _when I - "

"Cut it out." Sam slapped a hand down on top of the book, putting an end to the spinning. Dean eyed him.

"Cut what out?" he demanded, an edge to his voice. "Cut out talking about this? Cut out telling the truth?" He leaned over the table, until his nose was about an inch from Sam's. "Am I screwing with your new, _perfect _life, Sammy?"

"Don't call me that." He shook his head, looking away, unable to put the anger that the words deserved behind them.

"You like it," Dean said, his tone accusing.

Sam stood up, still not looking at him, pushing his chair back as he did so. He hoped it would put an end to the conversation. It didn't.

"And you hate that you do," Dean added, rising as well.

"I just want to find Dad, and go home," Sam replied, in as calm a voice as he could manage. "I won't bring any of this up if you don't." He picked several books up off the table, shelving them on a nearby cart before grabbing his laptop. "Let's go."

He didn't even realize he was waiting for Dean to lead the way out until he moved, shoving his chair back in under the table they'd been occupying for that past couple of hours. He stalked in the direction of the front doors, weaving through the maze of shelves with Sam following him, several feet behind.

He ached, in his chest, right behind his sternum. He wasn't even sure it was an entirely physical pain, and he didn't understand why it was there.

"So you're pretty excited to get back to California." Dean said it casually, all of his previous hostility gone, but Sam couldn't see his face. So he didn't know what he was feeling, and he didn't trust that buddy-buddy tone. Mostly because of the conversation they'd just had.

"Yeah," he answered, stiffly. "I am."

"And your girlfriend?"

This time, he didn't respond.

"Yeah, you two seem pretty close...which, y'know, just strikes me as kinda weird," Dean tossed over his shoulder. When Sam didn't rise to the bait after a couple of seconds, he continued. "I mean, can you even get it up for her? You always loved cock - "

"Shut up," Sam spat out, unable to hold it in any longer. He stopped in his tracks, the hand that wasn't occupied with holding his laptop clenching into a fist, and Dean stopped, too. He turned halfway around, looking his brother up and down with an expression that was more weary than cruel or vindictively pressed.

"You gonna hit me again, Sammy?" he asked quietly, and Sam felt all of his fury drain away.

_Are you going to hit me again? _He heard the words inside his head, in his own high-pitched, five-year-old voice. It brought back sudden, involuntary memories, of the demon hunt Dean'd mentioned yesterday, the last one they'd been on. Of being holed up in a motel room with his older brother, who he loved more than anyone or anything else in the world, and who, for some reason, had been distant. Unwilling to so much as touch him - at first.

_No. Don't do this, I _forgot, _I moved on - _

"No," Sam said, matching his tone as he relaxed his hand. "No, I'm not."

Something almost seemed to shift between them, and Dean nodded once, slowly. Sam tried to put a finger on what was different now, but couldn't. Maybe because it was so infinitesimal.

"Then let's go gank a demon." Dean turned, and motioned for him to follow. He did. And, out in the car, Dean might have commented that he was being pretty quiet, but Sam didn't hear him. He had surrendered to remembering, despite how dangerous he knew it was, what it might make him feel.

_Are you going to hit me again?_

At least it made the weird ache in his chest hurt less.

* * *

Mid-February, 1989

* * *

Dean was ten, and Sam was five. He only knew that because, for a little over four months every year, Dean was five years older than him instead of four - and it made him even cockier than usual. It meant he got to sit in the front seat of the car whenever Dad wasn't using it to hold luggage or gear, he got to pick the music they listened to, he got to order first at diners. Sam pretended it annoyed him, because, for some reason, he knew he was supposed to. But he honestly didn't mind; just so long as Dean still slept wrapped around him, and washed him first when they took a bath or a shower (always together), and touched him in all the ways he'd learned he liked. Which he always did.

But, this year, it was...different, and Sam wasn't sure why.

Things had started changing a couple of weeks after school started, for no reason at all that he could see. Sam had thought that Dean would be happy, because he was doing a lot better, school-wise. Bullies didn't bother him anymore - not really. Kids still called him names when they were out of earshot of the teacher, and they shoved him into walls or puddles every once in awhile, and he could hear them whispering about him sometimes. And, yeah, it hurt - but not all that much, because he knew he'd be going home soon, where his brother was and none of them mattered. It was hard to cry over being called a loser when he was sitting in Dean's lap to watch TV, leaning back against his chest with his arms wrapped loosely around him.

But Dean had started looking...troubled when he came to pick him up. He didn't smile, even when Sam bolted out of the building to hug him and beg him to hold his hand on the way home. He didn't want to talk about his day, he was abnormally quiet about everything else, and, when Sam asked him what was wrong, he just shook his head a little and muttered, "I just learned some stuff today, is all."

"Well...what kinda stuff?"

"Just...stuff, Sammy." He smiled weakly, hesitantly ruffled his thick hair. "Wanna watch TV or something?"

Sam decided he could deal with Dean not talking to him. He was more or less okay with him trying to work out whatever was bothering him on his own (and, about sixteen years later, he'd be shocked by how mature this way of thinking was, for a kindergartner) - just so long as he still spent plenty of time with him and held him and listened to him talk about his nightmares and whatever book he was reading and what he wanted to be when he grew up (currently, it was a doctor). It was only when all of that started to ebb that he really worried.

He'd wake up, curled into a terrified ball under the covers and completely alone, with Dean all the way over on the other side of the bed. He wouldn't hold his hand on the way home from school, pushing his questing arm away and murmuring something about how he didn't think they should. On the rare occasions they drove somewhere, Dean didn't want to sit next to him in the back seat, rebuffed all his efforts to try and cuddle. He didn't want to shower or bathe together. He didn't want to kiss - and he _really _didn't want to kiss in front of Dad. When Sam tried to touch him, in the special way he'd discovered two years ago, he actually slapped his hand away. It didn't physically hurt all that much, didn't leave a mark, but Sam cried anyway, under the covers that night with Dean so far away from him that they might as well be in different countries. He just didn't understand why he'd changed - maybe he'd done something wrong. So he tried apologizing...but that just made Dean look miserable and guilty, and things didn't get any better.

In fact, they got so bad that Sam actually went to their dad for help. It was a more-than-rare occurrence. Sure, Dad hugged him, brought home food and money and clothes. But Sam always went to Dean if he needed something, because Dean had always been, more often than not, the one who fed him, comforted him, looked after him. And Dad had been even more absent than usual these past few months - which, at Sam's age, was the only portion of the past that really mattered to him. Dad had said he wanted Sam to spend the year at only one school, ignored the look of puzzled hurt that had flickered across Dean's face as he realized _he'd _never spent the year at only one school, and explained that he'd be going out of town to hunt (not that he told Sam that), so the older of his boys would have to look after the younger. And he'd put that plan into action...but Sam went to him anyway. He didn't know where else to turn.

"He's just turning into a teenager," Dad said when he asked him (for some reason, just mentioning the cuddling and the spending time with him - not the other things), glancing up from the machete he was sharpening to look Sam in the eye. They were both sitting on the end of his bed. "It's normal, Sammy. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he's already got some girl he's thinking about."

For some reason, that made Sam's stomach hurt. Even though he was pretty sure that wasn't it. Dean was only ten, and he said so.

Dad looked tired when he did, sad, though he couldn't understand why. He set the machete aside and leaned forward to ruffle his hair as he said quietly, "Yeah, I know. You kids are growing up too damn fast."

Sam ducked away from his father's huge, scarred-and-callused hand. He only liked Dean touching his hair.

The situation didn't peak until Dad left again. He spent the whole day before he went at the local library, and came home bleary-eyed and troubled-looking as Sam and Dean were sitting at the tiny table in the room, eating cereal and not talking. Sam put his bowl in the sink and watched him as he sat on the end of his bed and took a hit from the flask he kept inside his leather jacket, then another, then called Dean over to speak to him in a low, serious voice. Dean nodded solemnly when he was done, and stood with his arms tightly crossed while their dad hugged Sam and left.

It was Friday night before a long weekend, because Presidents Day was on Monday and neither of them had to go to school. They'd been given strict instructions not to leave the room until their father got back - not even for school.

Dean seemed nervous.

Sam rubbed his bare arms, realizing that it was actually pretty cold in the room and the T-shirt he was wearing just might not be enough. When he passed Dean on the way to the bag that held his jacket, he hesitated, like he wanted to touch him, then turned away slightly. Sam stopped.

"How come you start doin' that, all of a sudden?" he asked. Dean glanced at him out of the corners of his eyes.

"Doing what?"

"You don't...you never let any part of you touch me. You don't even like looking at me, seems like. You wouldn't look at me just now, when I walked by you." Sam folded his arms, covered with goosebumps, and mirrored Dean's position. "I wanna know why."

"Well...I..." Dean stumbled over whatever it was he was trying to say. "It's just...it doesn't really matter."

"Tell me," Sam demanded. "You don't _talk _to me anymore."

"I just...I don't think we should do certain things anymore." He suddenly found a distance that Sam couldn't see very interesting, awkwardly reaching up to rub the back of his neck. "Touching and stuff. We should stop that."

"Stuff like this?" Sam reached up, and laid a small hand, palm-flat, against Dean's chest. He was confused, and more than a little angry, that he was being ignored, abandoned..and the guy doing it wouldn't even tell him why. He felt that he deserved to be treated better than this, though he was too young to put that feeling into words, and he could tell that Dean didn't want what he was suggesting any more than Sam did. He didn't understand. "Why?"

"Well...because..." Dean hesitated. Sam could feel his heartbeat, thrumming abnormally fast and hard under his palm. He could feel warmth, and bone, and muscle. Dean was only ten, but their dad took him out as often as he could to learn how to handle guns and knives, and get strong enough to fight and survive. For whatever reason. It was something that they both said Sam was too young for right now. "Y'know, you're just a little kid." He grabbed Sam's wrist and, gently, moved his hand off of his chest. "You wouldn't get it."

"Yes, I would!" This time, Sam grabbed onto the belt loops of Dean's jeans, an area that his chest was just about level with. "Tell me, Dean." He looked up at his big brother, and he knew that his lower lip was sticking out petulantly, but he didn't care. "I wanna know."

"No," Dean said firmly, pushing Sam away from him just a little, being as gentle as he could. Sam felt tears sting his eyes, but he didn't let them fall, because Dad had, time and again, hammered into both of them that crying didn't fix anything at all. He was cold, goosebumps prickling on his arms and rising along his back and legs now, and he wanted Dean to see that and take care of him. More than anything, he just wanted to crawl under the covers of their bed with him, so he could snuggle up close, and be held, and listen to Dean saying he still loved him. Without even noticing, he started to shiver.

Dean sighed heavily, seeing that, and herded him towards his bags with a soft, "All right, c'mon. PJs. Let's get you into bed, Sammy."

"What about you?" he asked, holding back the urge to sniff pathetically while Dean dug for his pajamas. Dean snorted.

"It's eight-freaking-thirty," he pointed out. "I'm not going to bed."

"Will you?" Sixteen years in the future, Sam would be completely incapable of asking his brother to hold him when he wanted him to, but, now, he wasn't quite so handicapped. He held his arms out, pleading for a hug, for closeness. For reassurance. "Please?"

"Maybe later," was what Dean said nervously, after a very long silence. Instead of pulling Sam towards him like he was supposed to, he just dumped the old, over-sized T-shirt he still slept in into his outstretched arms. Sam hurt. But he still didn't let himself cry, even though, before, Dean had always helped him get dressed. Planted gentle kisses on his bare back as he did so if Dad wasn't around, cupped him between the legs without really touching him to make him giggle. Obviously, that wasn't going to happen tonight.

Once Sam was tucked in (which he pretty much did entirely by himself), Dean sat on Dad's bed, and switched on the TV, making sure the volume was as low as possible. Curled up under the covers, trying to get warm, Sam settled his head on the flat pillow and stared at him. Close-cropped blonde hair, getting darker as he got older. Green eyes, which, more often than not, were filled with a jittery sort of guilt whenever he was looking at Sam. A spray of freckles across the bridge of his nose, a permanently-fierce expression, a wiry, narrow-hipped build. He loved him unconditionally, so much it physically hurt him when they were separated, and he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep tonight. Not without at least knowing why things had changed between them.

He sat up, swinging his legs out of bed, and Dean didn't notice. Not until he climbed onto Dad's bed, and crawled up next to him, kneeling where he couldn't ignore him with his shaggy hair already messed up from less than five minutes in bed and the old T-shirt spilling over his thighs. Dean glanced at him, set his jaw, and stabbed a button on the remote next to him to turn off the TV before asking, "What do you want, Sam?"

He almost flinched, because Dean _never _called him 'Sam' - always 'Sammy.' But he stayed stoic and said, plaintively, "'M cold."

"Yeah...I know." Dean's eyes softened, and, for a second, Sam thought for sure that he would give up whatever stupid game he was playing and finally touch him. Pull him into a tight, intimate hug, stroke his hair back from where it was falling into his eyes, grip his shoulder and guide him into a kiss...but he didn't. "Go back to bed. You'll warm up in a a bit."

"No, I won't," Sam protested, starting to shiver again. "The bed's cold, Dean, it's way too big - I'm not gonna warm up." He reached out, pleadingly, to touch his brother's face. "Please, Dean..."

Dean smacked his hand away with a strained, "No," looking guilty and sick as he did it, and, this time, it hurt. The back of Sam's tiny hand was already turning red when he jerked it back with a high-pitched yelp of pain, cradling it close to his chest. He wanted to cry, but, oddly enough, Dean's face crumpled before he could even make up his mind to just act like a baby and let the tears fall. He grabbed the bedspread, clenching it so tightly his knuckles turned white and working it between his fists as he glanced away and whispered, "I'm sorry, Sammy, I'm so sorry..."

Sam felt like sobbing, because he was so hurt and confused and he was still shaking miserably with cold. He wanted to howl out something like, _Why can't I touch you?_ or _Don't you love me anymore?_ What he did instead was stare down at his bare knees, studded with goosebumps, with dry eyes, still clutching his stinging hand to his chest. In a tired voice that betrayed none of the pain and anger he was feeling, he asked, "Are you going to hit me again?"

"No! No, never. Never again. I'm so sorry, I hurt you and I can't believe I did that, Sammy, I - " Dean stretched out a hand towards him, obviously meaning to try and comfort him, but he faltered. Dropped his hand limply to the bedspread, and Sam felt a surge of infantile frustration.

"Why won't you touch me?" he demanded. It was getting harder and harder not to just start crying; his throat ached, he was shivering violently now.

"You don't get it," Dean said, his voice barely audible as he squeezed his eyes shut.

"Then 'splain it to me!" Sam articulated better than a lot of kids his age. His kindergarten teacher called him 'gifted.' But he was still only five years old, and his speech tended to regress when he was feeling strongly about something. The fact that his teeth had started chattering probably didn't help.

"I..." Dean hesitated, then sighed. "Aw, Sammy." Very reluctantly, he opened his arms, an invitation that Sam had been aching for for months. "C'mere. Let's warm you up."

Sam all but launched himself at him, slamming into his chest so hard it prompted a grunt of surprise from both of them. He buried his face in his chest, barely even aware he was making happy cooing sounds as he settled into his lap, relaxing completely when he'd put his arms around him. Pressed tight against Dean, he stopped shivering almost immediately.

* * *

Mid-September, 2005

* * *

_I was just too young to know any better, _Sam told himself firmly, as he shoved a whiskey flask full of homemade holy water into his pocket and threaded the leather sheath of an iron knife onto his belt. _It was his fault for giving in to me. Because he knew, he'd figured it out...and he kept doing it anyway._

"Ready?" Dean asked, standing a good distance behind him with a sawed-off shotgun, loaded with salt rounds, dangling over his arm.

"I guess." Sam replaced the shotgun they used to prop up the false bottom of the Impala's trunk, lowering it and then slamming the trunk closed. He thought for sure that Dean would be looking at him as he did that, eyeing the muscles of his back and ass, but, no, he was staring at the base. They were still a ways away from it; they had to get through the fence. It just looked...abandoned, burned-out and rundown, not really haunted or spooky. But maybe it was different at night.

Dean didn't answer, just shoved his gun into the duffel bag he was carrying his gear in and slung it so it rested on his back as he walked over to the rusting fence. Squinting in the brilliant desert sun, he laced his fingers together, and gave Sam a wordless boost when he placed his foot in his hands. When Sam dropped down on the other side, shaking his hands to try and get rid of the searing sensation of sun-heated metal, he clambered over himself.

"Thanks," Sam said, his voice abnormally loud in the hot silence. Dean looked at him, his expression neutral, but didn't say a word.

He wondered why the ache in his chest suddenly worsened.


	7. Chapter 7

**First of all: All of you are wonderful.**

**Favoriters, followers, especially reviewers...thank you, you're amazing. **

**This chapter is late, because there were other projects I was working on, then a delay in editing, then I had to do some serious work on the chapter.**

**But it's up now!**

**And it's rather long (longer than the norm, at any rate), so be prepared to spend some time with it.**

* * *

The interior of the base was dark, where there was still glass in the windows, because the panes were blackened by smoke and the grime that had accumulated over the course of about thirty-three years. Where they'd been broken or were just missing, beams of mid-morning sunlight fell through in jagged patterns and illuminated the rubble that covered the cement floor. With his boots and the bottoms of his jeans already black with ash and dirt, Sam carefully picked his way through it, sweeping the beam of a flashlight over it where there wasn't any sunlight. He prayed he didn't break an ankle, because then Dean would have to carry him out.

Dean was leading the way through the darkened hallways, wielding a flashlight whose beam was marginally dimmer than Sam's. He moved slowly over the drifts of concrete chunks and ash and other burned stuff that, hopefully, weren't the remains of people. He hadn't spoken to Sam once since kicking in a door held shut by a padlock that had been more rust than metal, and the fact that it was completely silent outside the crunch of their boots was making Sam twitch a little. He didn't understand why he hurt, inside, or why he had a sudden, desperate need to hear Dean's voice. He just wanted him to talk, and he had been telling himself that it was because of some instinctual desire for human contact. But that explanation was wearing thinner and thinner as time went on.

He was...troubled (yeah, that was a good word for what he was feeling) by everything that was going on with him. He was angry at himself for remembering what it was like to be held by Dean, back when their sizes had been proportionate to their ages. He knew better than that, had done better for two whole years.

He never should have agreed to come with Dean. Being so close to him was dredging up old, unhealthy feelings, making him doubt what he knew had been the right thing to do.

Dean nudged open one of a pair of double doors with a metallic creak, shining his flashlight into the near-total darkness of what looked like it had once been a mess hall. It glinted off blackened tin trays and overturned chairs, their legs twisted from heat that was long gone. As Sam came up behind him, he muttered over his shoulder, "Smell that?"

Sam sniffed. For a second, all he could smell was ash, stale, musty air...and Dean's cologne, which he did his best to shut out. But then he picked up another scent, a fainter, more chemical one.

"Ozone," he said, with no enthusiasm at all. "Great."

"Yep." Dean nodded, adjusting the strap of his duffel bag on his shoulder. He dug into it, pulling out a sawed-off and shoving the stock at Sam before grabbing one for himself. "We've got ghosts."

"Like the demon wasn't enough," Sam muttered, taking the gun and holding it down by his side, his fingers automatically sliding into the correct positions. He didn't want to admit it to himself, but some part of him was desperately thrilled by the amiable tone in Dean's voice, and the fact that he didn't seem to be mad at him anymore. "Ever feel like God hates you?"

"God doesn't exist," Dean said matter-of-factly, kicking through a particularly large pile of concrete fragments and scattering them loudly across the floor of the mess hall. Sam winced, hoping that nothing too nasty had been alerted to their presence by that. "But I figure I must have pissed someone off."

He stepped into the room, his flashlight beam cutting a very thin line through the darkness, and Sam followed close behind. Something scurried away, off on the opposite side of the cavernous room. Probably a rat, but, nevertheless, Sam raised the barrel of his shotgun a little. He was glad for the decision when rubber - like the soles of a pair of sneakers - whispered against the concrete nearby.

"Did you hear that?" he asked Dean, keeping his voice low. Dropping his voice a couple octaves, he'd learned early on, was actually more effective than whispering when you didn't want to be heard. There were no hisses to carry.

"Hear what?" Dean stepped back a little, sweeping the beam of his flashlight in a wide circle. Near one of the corners of the mess hall, it sounded like a chunk of concrete bounced across the floor.

"I think there's someone else in here." Sam thumbed back the hammer on his gun.

"Well, yeah, obviously..." Dean stepped back again, until they were almost touching. "The ghosts and the de - " He stopped abruptly when Sam, almost imperceptibly, stiffened. "Oh. Gee. I'm sorry," he said, voice heavy with sarcasm. "Am I too close, Sammy?"

"Dean, please don't call me that," Sam muttered, moving away until he felt comfortable again. The nickname still shot him through with memories of hips bucking against his, hot, wet kisses trailing down the back of his neck, his brother laying him down and stroking his hair soothingly while he came down from an orgasm so intense he was surprised his lanky teenage body had been able to contain it...but it just didn't inspire the same furious anger that it usually had these past couple of days. Maybe because he was so tired. At any rate, he was a little grateful for the lack of rage, because this wasn't really a good place to fight with Dean.

"I'll call you whatever the hell I want, we're gonna be done with each other in a few hours." Dean stomped away from him, but his voice didn't sound nearly as raw and angry as it had at the library, when he'd been telling Sam that he obviously made him sick. "You're gonna have to get over this phobia of me; it's just not working."

"'S not a phobia," Sam murmured.

"Then what is it, huh?" Dean spread his arms wide in a "do tell" gesture. Suddenly, he dropped them again and just shook his head. "You know what? I don't care. I just wanna find Dad and finish this case, and I'm pretty sure you want the same thing." He scrubbed a hand through his hair, and Sam was sure that his dark-blonde brush cut would be full of black streaks the next time they came across a light source. "Look. We need to work together, and, before, we were actually pretty damn good at it. We can do that again, like you've been wanting. So." He crossed his arms over his chest, his flashlight illuminating a metal dog tag that had melted into the vinyl surface of one of the tables. "I'm going to put everything I feel towards you aside, okay? You're not my brother, you're not my lover..." Sam flinched a little, but Dean ignored him. "...you're just my partner. And I would really appreciate it if you would do the same."

_How the hell am I supposed to pretend you're just my partner when I had your cock in my mouth and up my ass before I was even fourteen?!_ demanded a furious voice in Sam's head - probably stemming from the part of him that had been fueling most of his outbursts. He automatically agreed with it, felt the words on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed them and crushed that voice. Dean was actually making an effort, offering him a chance at civility, neutrality - safety. He couldn't lash out at him (and certain parts of him, parts of him that had lain dormant under mental lock and key until recently, didn't want to). He knew it was a pretty fine line he was walking; he couldn't afford to touch, feel, or remember, and he couldn't afford to hit, hate, or insult, either. But it was only for a few more hours.

"I can do that, don't worry," he said quietly, swinging his flashlight around to search for whatever had made the noises he'd heard. "And...I'm sorry. For how I've been treating you. You didn't...it was unprofessional."

"I probably deserved most of it," Dean said flippantly, gracefully accepting his brother's weak, jumbled apology. "Now that we've stood here arguing like a couple of sitting ducks for about five minutes...where'd you hear that first sound?"

* * *

Mid-February, 1989

* * *

"You're warm now, right?" Dean asked quietly, Sam nestled against him, breathing so evenly that he might as well have been asleep. "I mean...I can let go of you?"

Sam, face buried contentedly in the hollow between his shoulder and his neck, automatically tightened his grip on his older brother's shirt. He didn't understand why Dean sounded so uncomfortable; before things had started changing for the worse, holding Sam had seemed to be one of his favorite things to do. Especially when he was as stressed out as he seemed to be, lately.

"No," he said, firmly. His voice was muffled; he raised his head, looking Dean in the eye as he demanded, "How come you _want _to? 'M not done yet." He rested his chin on Dean's shoulder, eyes hooding sleepily as he let most of his frustration and anger drain away. He was too small to sustain things like that for long, especially after he'd basically gotten what he'd wanted. "Dean...you still didn't say why you didn't wanna touch me. Said you learned something - what'd you learn?"

Dean sighed, head drooping a little. "I'm not sure I should - "

"Dean!" Sam unclenched one fist and smacked his brother's chest with his open palm. It could barely even qualify as hitting; it was really more of a pat. But Dean flinched a little anyway. "Tell me."

"Well..." He hesitated, and Sam felt his heart practically throbbing against his own. He waited, matching his breaths to Dean's, until he let out a frustrated, exasperated groan and nuzzled into his dark hair. Sam shivered in sudden, gratified pleasure. "...the kids in my class. They've been talking about stuff I never heard before, stuff I didn't even know." His voice was quiet, regretful, and his breath was a little shaky as it puffed against Sam's scalp. "Like...what guys and girls do together, when they're trying to make babies, or...y'know, just, uh. Trying to have fun." (Years in the future, when a sixteen-year-old Dean used the word "fucking" every other sentence, Sam would think back on this conversation and find it unbearably hilarious.) "And what all that stuff is called, and...and why people who're related shouldn't do it 'cause it's - 'cause it's _wrong."_

He squeezed him tight, shaking a little, and Sam reached around to pat his back. Dean seemed to melt under his clumsy touch, sighing deeply into his hair. Still confused, but aware that his brother was so upset he wasn't even angry, just _broken, _Sam whispered, "Dean...I'on't get it."

"Sammy - all this stuff they've been talking about - " His voice hitched a little. "It's stuff w_e've _been doing."

"Like what?" Sam asked quietly, even as Dean pulled his head away from his and loosened his grip a little.

"Like..." He was looking off into the distance, again, his arms wrapped limply around Sam. "The kissing. We shouldn't do that - normal brothers don't do that."

"Dean - " His heart hurt, like a little hairline fracture had appeared in it when Dean said they couldn't kiss anymore. He wanted to say something that he just knew would be exactly right, would make his big brother love him again just like he used to, but Dean cut him off.

"And sleeping together - that's bad, too, that's, like, the worst," he was saying now, sounding like he was on the verge of tears, afraid and hurting and maybe even hating himself, just a little bit. Looking back on it, Sam wasn't sure if he'd been emotionally mature enough for his heart to break, but it'd sure felt like it. It had hurt more than anything he'd ever encountered before, seeing Dean like this. He was always so perfectly strong, stronger even than Dad, because he never Sam's side except when he absolutely had to, and he never changed, to slur his words and yell about things Sam had been told, over and over, weren't real. "I hold you too much, too. It's not okay for me to have you on my lap all the time, or to cuddle with you as much as I do. All this touching...it's not right. Not okay." He shook his head miserably, taking one hand off Sam to rub at his face, leaving a red mark Sam wanted to kiss away.

"Dean - it is, too, okay!" He pressed himself against Dean's chest, looking for warmth because he was getting cold again and reassuring him by reaching up to stroke the small, bristly hairs at the base of his neck. He wasn't really sure what he was doing; it was, honestly, more of an instinct-driven thing than anything else. But it seemed to be working. He could sense the comfort he was giving, as he burrowed deeper into his brother, his protector, his best friend's embrace, burying his face in his T-shirt and breathing in the sweet, musky scent that was entirely Dean. "Dean..."

"I told you you wouldn't understand," Dean said softly. Sam felt a hand on his hair, petting, gently working out all the tangles and snags. "You're just a little kid. You don't get it."

"I..." It was true; he didn't. He didn't understand why it was wrong. All he understood was that Dean was in pain and wasn't willing to do anything they both loved any longer, and it fell to him to fix it. He suspected he was the only one who could. "Dean - "

"I shouldn't touch you like I do." Dean cut him off, and Sam wondered if he even knew he had. He seemed lost now, barely even paying attention to what was around him; just needing to get rid of the information that had been lying in his mind for months now, all but poisoning him. His hand slipped off Sam's head. "And I shouldn't let you touch me like that. Put your hands down between my legs, jerk me off..." He hesitated before repeating himself in a voice that was barely even a whisper. "Normal brothers don't do that."

"Dean." Sam pulled back a little, away from the simple comfort of feeling his brother's voice vibrate in his chest, against his ear and jawbone. Without thinking about it, he put his small hands on either side of Dean's face, making him actually look at him, make eye contact. Sitting in his lap, he tried to look as serious as possible. "This _is _normal, for us."

Hearing his own words from the very beginning of the school year, Dean closed his eyes and bit his lip. He held Sam close again, his movements so gentle it was almost as if he thought his baby brother had spontaneously turned into glass. Sam let go of his face, tucking his arms down in between their chests and snuggling closer in a search for warmth.

"You don't get it," Dean said softly, starting to rock them back and forth. The soothing, familiar motion made Sam yawn against him, under a wave of sudden sleepiness. "And you don't really care, either, do you?"

Sam shook his head, face pressed into his shoulder, because he really didn't. He just wanted his brother back, wanted things to be exactly like they had before. How they should be.

"Okay." Dean took a shaky breath, and buried his face in Sam's hair again. He was relaxing, his breathing more even now, the rocking soothing instead of nervous. "Okay...this is okay. We can do this." His voice sharpened suddenly. "I don't even give a damn what anybody else thinks anymore. This is...this can't be wrong." He hugged Sam tighter, making him squirm suddenly and let out an involuntary sound of pleasure and gratitude. This was what he had needed for months, and finally getting it felt even better than he'd thought it would. "You're too perfect. It can't be wrong."

"I love you." Sam cooed it into Dean's T-shirt, nestling deeper into his tight, warm hug, and he'd never meant it more. Their dad was gone again, he'd been abandoned and he didn't understand what was going on, but he had Dean.

"I know," Dean murmured. "I know, Sammy." He fell silent for a moment, before saying, "C'mon, let's go to bed. I'm beat."

* * *

Mid-September, 2005

* * *

Sam forcibly shook himself out of the memory as he and Dean left the mess hall behind, not having been able to find whatever it was that had been making those noises. He couldn't afford to slip into a flashback here, where they might be attacked at any moment - and especially not..._that _sort of flashback. He felt like biting his tongue, digging his fingernails into his palms, giving himself just a little bit of pain to focus on so he could drag his mind out of the bad place it had apparently crawled into the second he felt Dean's hands on him again.

But part of him felt just as confused and lonely as he had when he was five years old and begging attention from his brother.

_He never actually _hurt _me._ The voice bubbled up out of the very back of Sam's mind, quiet but impossible to ignore and unmistakably his own. _He was so gentle with me, he never did anything I didn't like, he always asked before trying anything...he loved me. I loved him, I liked it - why does this horrify me so much?_

As soon as the question crossed his mind, every muscle in his body tightened in sudden, violent memory. His face stung like he'd been slapped, and he sucked in a desperate breath between gritted teeth, almost dropping his flashlight. His father's voice, just as furious and shocked and blatantly disgusted as it had been over two years ago, thundered through his skull and tore all the doubt apart like tissue paper.

_It's _sick, _Sam, most twisted thing I've ever seen in my entire career as a hunter - you're _brothers. _ He has the same mother you do, the same father, and you let him climb on top of you and - and - look at this, I can't even _say _it. This is - it's _inhuman, _is what it is. I'd pump you both full of rock salt and silver if I didn't know for a fact you two are full-blooded humans. _

A snarl, just a sound of pure, animal rage.

_But, hey. I could be wrong. After all, you're acting like a couple of animals. A couple of monsters._

"Sam? You okay?" Dean glanced at him over his shoulder. Sam leaned against the wall of the corridor they were in and rubbed a hand over his face, not really caring that he was probably leaving ashy streaks around his eyes. That little flash of memory had been so completely different from the last thing he'd been remembering, so raw and powerful and practically serrated, that it had all but left him shaking. Not to mention totally scoured. The soft spot he'd been, somehow, harboring for Dean and the relationship he used to have with him - gone. His guilt over shoving him and yelling at him and basically treating him terribly - gone. That vague whisper of reassurance that, maybe, what they'd been doing hadn't been so wrong after all - gone. Gone, gone, gone. Leaving him feeling so empty he was surprised he could still detect his heart beating...but the ache was still there, in his chest. Worse than ever before, actually.

"I'm fine," he muttered, feeling a sudden flash of irritation at Dean for his concern. He pushed off the wall, feeling like he was eighteen again for just a second, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans and the leather jacket that had just barely become Dean's. Hunching his shoulders inward and bowing his head under the horrifying force of his father's anger.

"You sure?"

"Yes." Sam just wanted to be through with this, because it - well, it _hurt_, and he didn't know why.

"'Cause you can head back to the car if you're not feeling good. I can finish up here."

He heard the challenge underlying Dean's words easily enough. If he left now, he'd be sending a pretty clear message: he couldn't handle this anymore. Either he just wasn't strong enough, or wasn't brave enough, or couldn't put whatever grudge he was holding on the back burner for so much as a few hours.

"I told you, I'm fine," he said quietly. Dean's hand twitched, down by his side, and Sam had a sudden, vivid image of Dean cupping the side of his jaw when he was fifteen, after he'd hit his head during a hunt, examining his face and eyes with genuine concern for signs of a concussion. That didn't happen this time. He didn't touch him, wouldn't touch him; and Sam could almost believe he was happy for that as Dean turned away and started walking again. He understood, without a shadow of a doubt in his mind, that it was good for them to keep their distance from each other. It was healthy. His dad's voice still echoed around the inside of his head.

_I hated the bastard, but...he was right about this, _Sam thought, closing his eyes briefly. _That outburst of his...it was what I need to - to really _understand. _To get out and do the right thing and build a life I'm not afraid to tell anyone about for fear of them being horrified or repulsed or - or motivated to...get me away from it._

Even the voice inside his head was shaky and uncertain. He was a wreck; this whole thing was practically tearing him to pieces.

And he had started thinking of his father in the past tense. That was, doubtless, going to screw him up sooner or later.

"Hey!" Dean's sudden, rough shout startled Sam out of his thoughts. He blinked, automatically raising both his flashlight and his salt-filled shotgun and following his brother's lead on where to aim. Rubber-soled sneakers scuffed against the floor, scattering rubble and suddenly making the heavy silence of the base shockingly loud. It obviously wasn't either of them - they weren't moving, and, besides, they never wore sneakers. Their sturdy boots could stop a nail from going through the sole, crush broken glass harmlessly, cave in the skull of any monster they managed to wrestle to the ground, and hold up under a wave of acidic blood or venom. Sneakers couldn't.

The beam of Dean's flashlight swept forward, picking out a fairly-tall, well-built figure ducking around the corner up ahead, where the corridor met another and made a "T" shape. In the second that he saw him for, Sam got an impression of frayed blue jeans, a green T-shirt, and thick, dark hair shining amber in the light. He got only the briefest glimpse of the side of his face, the curve of an eye socket and the edge of a cheekbone, but what he did see triggered a sudden jolt of recognition in him. But he wasn't quite sure why. Not at first.

Dean took off, running after the guy with a curse. He only stumbled once, moving with a grace Sam wouldn't have expected form him if he hadn't spent so much time in physical contact with him. He followed, yelling, "Human! Don't shoot!" because he knew how Dean tended to think in situations like this.

"Yeah, I know - " Dean kicked through a pile of ash, sending a gritty black cloud straight into Sam's eyes and mouth. "Great. He probably thinks we're crazy now..." Raising his voice, he yelled, "Federal marshals! Stay where you are!"

Rounding the corner with Sam right behind him (more out of instinct than a conscious decision), shotgun just barely pointing down at the floor, he suddenly stopped dead.

"Okay...what the hell?"

There wasn't any sign of the guy they'd seen, which Dean proved when he methodically swept the beam of his flashlight around. There weren't any doorways nearby he could have ducked into, no other hallways he could have run down without them seeing. Dean lowered his gun fully, and cocked his head. Glancing at Sam, he uncertainly asked, "Ghost?"

Sam considered ignoring him, but the words were already in his mouth, and, besides. He didn't want to risk setting him off again when they'd just barely reached such a functional peace.

"I don't think so," he replied, tone carefully neutral. "The temperature didn't drop, and the smell of ozone didn't get stronger. But I definitely don't think he was human."

"Shoulda shot him," Dean muttered. He started down the hall, keeping a wary eye out. "You don't think he was our demon, do you?"

"I thought they looked like black smoke."

"Maybe they can change." He shook his head. "I've never hunted one before; I don't really know a whole lot besides how to get rid of 'em. I was way too young to help the last time Dad went after one."

"Speaking of Dad," Sam started. Just saying the word while so close to Dean sent a prickle of savage warning down his spine.

"What about him? He's gotta be in here somewhere. We'll find him."

"Are we even sure he's...well...here, though?" Nudging a foot through a drift of ash and charred plaster, Sam's stomach turned a little at the sight of what looked a whole lot like a blackened ulna. "If he'd gotten to the point where he would have wanted to check out this base, he would've had to've interviewed Mrs. Moon, and she didn't - " He stopped suddenly, something clicking. "God, that's it. I knew he looked familiar."

"Who? Dad?" Dean gave him a skeptical look, his features cast into hollow shadow as he turned his face away from the beams of their flashlights. "Well, gee, Sam, I wonder why."

"No, no." He shook his head, tamping down a sudden flare of irritation at having to explain himself. "The guy we were after. It was Lucas."

Dean stopped, unintentionally aiming his flashlight at Sam so he had to squint to see his blank expression. "Who?"

"Lucas Moon." This time, he couldn't keep a thin note of impatience out of his voice. "Mrs. Moon's son. The guy who went missing. She had a picture of him in her house."

"Jesus. You're right." Dean looked down the hall, to the inky blackness at the end of it. "So...what? Is he..." He shrugged. "I don't know, possessed? Or something? Can demons possess humans?"

"Don't ask me." Sam ran a hand through his hair, and exhaled explosively. "What did Dad tell you about that one?"

"Not much. It beat him up pretty bad, remember? He didn't like to talk about it." After a moment's silence, Dean smiled at him, the expression warm and affectionate and with no sexual pressure at all in it. "Glad you recognized him; I never would've caught that, if I'd been alone. Knew there was a reason I brought you along." He moved towards the nearest doorway, gesturing for Sam to follow him. "It's real nice to be hunting with you again."

Despite himself, Sam smiled back, and it felt real. He felt the pulse of something returning - the guilt, the longing. It was like he was standing with his palms pressed to a thick wall, feeling the steady beat of the captive sea behind it but not affected by it, and now water was trickling over the top. His dad's voice was so faint now in his head that it barely affected him at all, and he wasn't sure if he should be terrified that his lifeline to normality had suddenly dissolved in his hands, or if he should be happy that one of the barriers was temporarily down.

_A barrier to _what?

He wasn't sure. Or maybe he was, and admitting it scared him too much. He didn't know what to allow himself to think, what to allow himself to feel, and that scared him, too, after practically an entire life of knowing exactly where he stood with his emotions. Loving his brother more than anything else in the world, hating him for damaging him and ruining his childhood.

He remembered being five years old, falling asleep safe in Dean's arms, hoping to God that things never changed again, and he just didn't know what to feel.

* * *

Mid-February, 1989

* * *

Dean always slept in his boxers and the T-shirt that he'd worn that day, just like Dad did. Sam found it comforting, a ritual he could count on, and a welcome reminder of his father when he was gone (which was frequently). He liked to nestle against Dean's shirt, breathe in all the smells of his day - the rain he'd walked home from school in, cigarette smoke from the interior of the gas station where he'd stopped to pick up milk, exhaust from the parking lot of the motel - and, underneath all of that, his brother's own, unmistakable scent. A clean, complicated, almost sweet smell, a variation of which formed some of his earliest memories. He didn't like having to deal with the boxers when he wanted to touch Dean, but that was his only real complaint. And it hadn't actually been a problem for several months now.

Tonight, though, was finally different. Dean, still holding onto Sam, scooted off of Dad's bed and stood up, carrying him over to their bed with a grunt of effort and gently laying him down in the midst of the rumpled covers. Sam sat with his legs crossed and his hands in his lap, and watched Dean strip off his boots, jeans, and the flannel button-down he was wearing open over a green T-shirt with a faded, unrecognizable logo on it. Dumping his clothes over by the bags that held, basically, their entire lives when Dad had taken the car, he scowled at Sam, but there wasn't any real anger in it.

"What've you been eating, rocks?" he demanded. "I can barely pick you up anymore."

"You're lying," Sam accused, watching with something almost like anxiety as Dean padded back to the bed with bare feet. But he didn't tell him to scoot over and and then curl up on the very opposite side of the bed, like he usually did, lately. Instead, he flicked off the light and crawled up right next to Sam, pushing him down gently into a laying position and then pulling the covers up over them both, as he laid down with his chest against his back and one arm curled protectively around him.

"Yeah, I am," he said quietly, speaking into his hair. "You're still so tiny, Sammy. So fragile." He moved his hand down, gently tracing the lines of his chest and stomach, but froze on his lower belly, right above his crotch. Sam moved his feet slightly against the sheets, squeezing his eyes shut in disappointment. "I can...I can still pick you up just fine."

He sounded uncertain again, all of a sudden, frightened and guilty. Sam felt like there was a ball of ice in his stomach, but, before he could say anything, Dean's arm tightened around him. He held him close, nudging one leg over his, and murmured, "I missed this." He pressed a tender, tentative kiss to the nape of his neck, where his dark hair grew in soft and short. "Yeah, I missed this a lot."

Sam reached up, and pressed one hand against Dean's forearm, breathing deeply as he squeezed, holding him in place just in case he tried to move away. He nudged his hips backwards, snuggling closer and tucking his head down. He felt Dean press his chin to the top of it, just as close as Sam needed him to be and perfectly reassuring.

"Don't leave again, okay?" he asked quietly, a little flicker of fear that this wouldn't last worming its way into the fuzz of warmth and sleepiness and comfort that was clouding his brain. He didn't mean leaving literally, but emotionally, abandoning him again and leaving him miserable and confused and more alone than he could stand being. But he just wasn't quite sure how to put all of that into words, so he hoped Dean understood what he was trying to say. "Not ever again. Okay?"

"Okay. Yeah, never again." Dean's voice was gentle, loving. If anything about this was still bothering him, he must have shoved it to the very back of his mind. "You're my little brother, and I gotta take care of you. That comes before everything else, huh?" He patted his chest, even though it was awkward in the position they were in, the gesture simple and more than enough to make Sam completely let go of whatever stress and tension he was holding onto. He wiggled an arm under him, so he could hold him completely, and Sam made a soft, grateful cooing sound without even realizing it. "And I need you. You're, like, the best thing in my life." He paused, and, when he spoke again, it sounded like he was smiling, just a little. "But, if you tell anybody I said that, I'll rip you a new one."

"Wha's'at mean?" Sam asked sleepily, eyes closed and small body all tucked up into the curve that Dean's made. Dean's breathing was even against his hair as he considered it for a couple seconds.

"I don't really know," he admitted, finally. "There's this one kid at my school, a sixth grader, he says it all the time and I just thought it sounded tough. Forget about it." He sighed deeply, and shifted a little. "I love you, Sammy. I know I haven't been saying that like I should, but...I just want you to know it. I want to you _feel _it."

Sam squirmed in his arms until he loosened his grip, then rolled over to face him. Dean cupped the back of his head with one hand, stroking his hair, and Sam opened his eyes and laid his palm against the side of Dean's face. Then they were kissing, their mouths pressed together, so close Sam imagined he could feel every single one of Dean's pulse points, his older brother's lips moving oh-so-gently against his. Exploring, testing what was okay and what he wanted, feeling him out and getting familiar with him again after such a long time without touching or being touched. Sam opened his mouth and gasped, quietly, love and joy and relief mixing together in his chest and stomach as Dean planted kisses on his chin and lower lip, waiting for him to close his mouth. When he did, he kissed back, and he knew his movements were clumsy compared to Dean's, but, right then, he didn't care.

When Dean tugged his oversized T-shirt up around his hips and anxiously whispered, "Is this okay, Sammy? Can I do this?" he nodded rapidly, let out a breathless, excited, "Uh-huh," and completely surrendered. Feather-light touches, coming from hands that were already getting callused from sparring and working, traced the shape of his belly, the insides of his thighs, and the ridges of his hips, getting steadily closer to the area between his legs. He was laying on his back, Dean crouched over him and touching him with only his fingertips. He whimpered with sudden need, lifting his hips a little as his brother started to stroke, rubbing from the base of him all the way up to his head with his thumb, holding him cupped in the palm of his hand as he stiffened. Den let him buck into his hand as he worked him out to his full length (which wasn't much - he was only five) with movements of his fingers, and Sam closed his eyes and bit his lip, the waves of pleasure coming from where he was being touched entirely welcome. They'd rarely done this, even before Dean stopped touching him for so long, because he could coax him into an erection, stroke him and pump his shaft with one fist and plant kisses on his head or around the base, but he couldn't give him release. Dean speculated that Sam was too young to "come," as he called it. Sam honestly didn't care. It felt good just the way it was.

Dean's hand was warm around him, as he worked gently up and down, stabilizing him with his other hand firmly gripping his shoulder. He was murmuring encouragement and assurances, voice full of affection, and every single one of his movements was soft and soothing. Almost like he was just trying to calm him down, get rid of the fear and hurt of the past few months, instead of giving him as much pleasure as he could handle. Sam panted, hips still rocking, and decided he didn't mind. It'd been a long day, he was exhausted, this was really just a way to reaffirm their relationship, and...oh.

He cried out a little, unable to help himself, as it suddenly started feeling really, _really _good. Even better than normal. It felt like he was getting close to reaching something, cresting, as the waves of pleasure got more and more intense and crashed over him closer and closer together. Dean sped up his movements like he sensed he needed to, and Sam gasped, digging his fingertips into the mattress and thrusting up as hard as he could.

"D-De - " he started shakily, screwing his eyes shut as tight as they would go.

"You're fine, Sammy, just fine," Dean soothed, squeezing his shoulder and rubbing his thumb briefly over his head. "Hold on."

Sam cried out again, much louder this time, as what felt a whole lot like an explosion of pure, amazing sensation happened down between his legs and spread swiftly outwards. His bare toes curled, and he pressed his head back into the pillow he was resting on as he peaked. Dean held onto him tightly, hands warm and strong, and he was grateful for that, because this felt so powerful he thought it might carry him off if he wasn't anchored here. Something hot and sticky flowed out of him, or had flowed, and he hoped, desperately, that he hadn't wet himself. He wasn't sure he'd be able to look Dean in the eye if that was what had happened.

Coming down, feeling detached and contented and wholly satisfied, Sam raised his head, his tiny chest heaving as he took deep breaths. Even in the dim light, he could see just a little bit of pearly-white fluid, puddled on his stomach and his penis and Dean's hand. It looked familiar; he'd seen something like it on his own hands after touching Dean. His eyes widened slightly.

_Oh._

"Well, hey...look at that." Dean leaned forward to kiss his forehead, letting go of him. "Guess you're growing up."

He scooped him up, and carried him into the bathroom, to clean him up with a thin motel washcloth drenched in hot water. Being carried back to the bed, his arms wrapped around Dean's neck and his legs around his waist, Sam's eyelids drooped. He was all but asleep when Dean laid him down and then pressed himself against him, holding him close and snuggling with him under the covers. The feel of his arms around him was enough to send him off, feeling safe and loved.

Dad wouldn't come back for a week. Holed up in the motel room, Sam would be confused and terrified, but only for a few minutes at a time, before Dean noticed. He would kiss him, gently, and hug him, or hold him on his lap until he wasn't afraid anymore.

"It's okay, Sammy, I got you," he murmured, as Sam trembled against his chest. "You don't have to be scared. I'm here - I'm never gonna let anything hurt you, okay? I'm gonna take care of you. No matter what."


	8. Chapter 8

**Two on time in a row.**

**I'm getting back into the swing of things.**

* * *

Sam was being pretty quiet.

It was something Dean noticed a couple minutes after they tried (and, unfortunately, failed) to run down that guy who may or may not have been a demon. He was walking beside and slightly behind him, because the hallways they were wandering aimlessly through were too narrow for them to walk side-by-side - and, even if they weren't, Sam probably wouldn't want to walk next to him, a realization that like a kick to a part of him that was already bruised black and swollen with hurt. But his shotgun was lowered, he wasn't pointing out anything that looked even vaguely interesting (like the smear of yellow sulfur on the wall that they had passed), and, when Dean glanced back at him, his hazel eyes were sort of glazed over. Like he was thinking deep thoughts or sorting through a memory or something.

Dean honestly preferred this detached silence to Sam snarling and snapping at him, but he couldn't let him get lost inside his own head. Not here, surrounded by ghosts and a demon that was possibly wearing Lucas Moon's meat. He would rather Sam made snide, vague remarks about him being a child molester, if it meant he got his gun up in time to keep something from clawing his face off.

So he stopped, and waved a hand in front of Sam's face. "Hey. Major Tom. Wake up - I'm not gonna babysit you."

He blinked, then shook his head firmly, tucking his flashlight under his gun arm in order to run a hand through his hair. Now that his face wasn't totally blank, he had a weird look on it, and Dean wasn't quite sure what the expression was supposed to convey. It almost looked like he'd been trying to figure something out, and didn't really like the conclusion he'd come to.

"Sorry," Sam muttered, avoiding eye contact. Ash glittered in his dark hair, matting curls of it to his scalp. "I was just...I was thinking."

"Well, that's great, but d'you think you could, maybe, save the soul-searching until we get outta here?" Dean asked. "I need you to have your head in the game."

"I am. I mean, I do. Don't worry - I've got your back." A weak, very brief smile twitched at the corners of Sam's mouth, and Dean swallowed a sudden burst of gratified excitement. Yeah, Sam was smiling at him, not smiling back, actually _smiling_ - but they were partners, nothing more. It didn't matter.

"Are you sure you're not, like...coming down with something? And it's screwing with your head?" Dean had a sudden urge to slip his hand underneath the fringe of hair that fell over Sam's forehead, to make sure he wasn't running a fever. Just like he had when they were younger. He remembered an eleven-year-old Sam, sick with influenza he'd never been vaccinated against, curled up in a cocoon of every blanket Dean could get his hands on...but still shivering violently and coughing so hard his entire skinny body shook with the force of it. Dean hadn't been able to bring himself to leave his side, except to get more tissues and hot water - and he bolted when he did. He'd been terrified, afraid that Sammy would get worse, that he'd die with Dean pressed against him. But Dad had been in trouble with the cops again, so he hadn't been able to take him to the doctor. Dean'd been hyperaware of all of Sam's illnesses, minor as they might actually turn out to be, ever since. But he didn't let himself touch him now, because that probably would've crossed one of the lines they'd just barely drawn in order to work together. "I mean, you were spazzing out earlier."

"Dean, I'm fine." Sam motioned him out of the way, then took the lead. "I just zoned out for a second. Did you see anything interesting?"

"Nah...not really." He shrugged. "Just proof that our demon's definitely in here somewhere." He told him about the sulfur he'd seen, and Sam nodded.

"It's gotta be Lucas," he said, sounding dead certain. "We have to try to find him again, trap him in a circle of salt, or maybe iron; then we can try and drive the demon out of him."

"Know any exorcism rituals, Father?" Dean asked, only half-joking. Sam shook his head, looking frustrated in the way he had when he was faced with a problem and didn't have the solution.

"Well, I've seen _The Exorcist _just as many times as you have, but, somehow, I don't think anything from that would work." He shrugged helplessly. "I guess we could just throw holy water at him until it leaves."

"So we're gonna have a water fight with him." Dean smirked, and shook his head. "Y'know, somehow, when I envisioned my first demon hunt...I didn't see it being quite so stupid."

"Hey, at least it's not the - " Sam stopped dead, suddenly. _"Shit." _When he shot a glance at him over his shoulder, Dean could see that his breath was misting in air that was suddenly about thirty degrees cooler than it had been, fine white steam streaming from between his lips. He felt goosebumps rise along his arms and lower back, and it wasn't just because he was focusing on Sam's lips. He wished he'd worn something heavier than a T-shirt, despite the oppressive September heat outside.

"Jesus, I hate double hunts." He pumped his sawed-off, index finger resting heavily on the trigger, and swept the beam of his flashlight around, searching for the apparition he expected to see lunging for him. But he didn't see anything. His back was to Sam's, as they unconsciously fell into one of the many defensive positions they'd had drummed into them until combat came as easily as breathing and walking, and he was perfectly aware of how close they were. His first, strongest instinct was to take half a step backwards, so they were pressed together, provide comfort and just a little bit more safety here. But he didn't let himself do that. "See anything?"

"No." Sam's breathing was ragged. "Okay, you're the expert on this case. The people who've been dying here recently - how'd it happen? Was it consistent with a poltergeist attack, or...?"

"I don't know if anybody's actually _died, _they just went missing," Dean replied, jaw set and shoulders hunched to try and protect his neck. "The ghosts might not even be involved with that. They might just be, y'know, here,and the demon's using their home as a base of operations for whatever the hell it's doing." He fell silent for a second, thinking, then flashed a fast smile at the darkness all around him. "'Course, if I see one, I'm just gonna shoot." He cleared his throat; all the ash they'd stirred up was playing merry hell with his mucus membranes. "Take no...frickin'...chances." He stayed perfectly silent for a few seconds, listening to the too-loud beating of his own heart, then glanced back at Sam. "See anything?"

"No - "

"Marshals."

The voice, deeply masculine and perfectly calm, made them both spin around in a cloud of soot they brought up from the floor, flashlights and guns aimed perfectly on the first try. The beams both settled on the generically-handsome face of a tall blonde guy. He was actually blonde, too, like, platinum-blonde, not the borderline dirty-blonde that Dean classified himself as, and he was in military dress. Even though it looked a little outdated, his uniform was immaculate and fit him perfectly. He was obviously dead; no way would anyone corporeal be able to keep any article of clothing that clean in this place. And he didn't so much as squint in the double glare of two flashlights.

He looked familiar. For whatever reason. But Dean didn't really care about that as his finger tightened on the trigger of his shotgun.

"No - " Sam, who had apparently lost his freaking mind, reached over and shoved the barrel down. The gun kicked in his hand as rock salt exploded against the debris-strewn floor, and the ghost flinched. "No. Dean...wait."

"Sam, are you _nuts?"_ He flashed back to his earlier theory about him being sick. If that was actually the case, he'd better be running a really damn high fever right now. Like, above one-oh-five. "That's a - "

"I know." His voice was low, and he kept his hand on Dean's gun. "But have you ever heard one _talk _before?"

"Well..." He thought about it. All the ghost hunts he'd ever been on. Freezing his ass off, unable to smell anything but ozone and singed rock salt, ears filled with screaming and frantic gibbering... "Not coherently."

The blonde ghost flickered like a television set that needed to be pounded on a few times, which Dean knew all too well ghosts did way too often. He was standing in a parade-rest position, feet shoulder-width apart and arms folded behind his back. As Dean watched, he inclined his head a little in Sam's direction.

"It wouldn't have done him much good, if he hit me," he said, tone polite and just a little bit amused, "but thanks anyway."

"Loaded with salt rounds." Dean waggled the gun at him. "It woulda stung, at the very least."

The ghost raised both eyebrows. "Salt." He looked like he was thinking about it. "Never heard of that trick, I can honestly say...I figured there wasn't anything out there that could hurt me now."

"Sorry to burst your bubble."

"You're Jake Moon, right?" Sam asked, speaking up beside him. "Colonel Jake Moon?"

He smiled a little, and Dean realized why he looked familiar. That old lady - Mrs. Moon - had had a picture of him, from when he had been a few years younger than he appeared now.

"You've done your homework," he said, and Dean fought the urge to roll his eyes at the approving note in his voice. "Which means you know I'm dead, and, because you seem to have taken that in stride..." He scrutinized them, and Dean realized he hadn't blinked once since he'd come out of nowhere. Those sharp, intelligent eyes of his, an icy amber color, didn't look like they missed much. "I'm going to assume you're not actually federal marshals. Like you told the demon you were."

"Well, we have badges," Dean replied, shrugging.

"So he _was_ a demon?" Sam asked, ignoring him. He'd finally taken his had off of Dean's shotgun, apparently deciding he could be trusted to behave himself now. He was, weirdly enough, slightly disappointed; that had been as close to voluntary contact with him as Sam had gotten since he'd come to find him in California.

_"She," _Colonel Moon corrected. "The host is male, but the..._thing..."_ The dead could apparently hate, if the way he said that last word was any indication. "...is female. I think. She looks it, just a little, but it's..." He made a complicated little gesture with one hand. "...hard to tell." He turned then, ignoring the blank look Sam shot at Dean - he was looking to him for answers, automatically and without any malice in his gaze at all. His heart leaped, but he crushed the excitement, knowing that it was something he wasn't allowed to feel if he wanted this whole thing to work - and flickered again right before he beckoned to them. "You two had better come into my office."

Dean followed him, raising an eyebrow at the mention of an office because it seemed way too normal and domestic for this situation, but kept the barrel of his sawed-off slightly raised and his finger curled around the trigger. No matter how articulate they were, he didn't trust ghosts. He didn't trust anything, in fact, that wasn't fully human, with red blood and a beating heart and relatively blunt canines. And, even then, the list of those people who he would comfortably turn his back on was painfully short. Dad. Caleb. Pastor Jim. Maybe Bobby Singer, out in South Dakota, if it was just his head was pissed at and not actually him. Sam. Of course. Though he was no longer entirely sure about that...which, Jesus, hurt like a son of a bitch.

But he could kick through his drifts of pathetic feelings about that subject later. Right now, he needed to focus, just like he'd badgered Sam into doing.

Colonel Moon led them through a door, with a nameplate on it that was too blackened by smoke and warped by heat to read. Literally, _through_ a door - it was closed and he just walked right through it. Dean opted to kick it open, which earned him a coughing fit from Sam when the violent movement jarred loose a gritty cloud, and pretty much no reaction at all from the ghost. He moved behind a desk in the room, one that had probably once been modest but sturdy, but was now falling apart. The chair behind it only had two legs, and those looked like they were a couple minutes away from giving up the ghost - pun completely intended - but he lowered himself into it anyway, and the desiccated wood didn't so much as creak.

"You must," he began, leaning forward, placing his elbows on the desk, and steepling his fingers, "be here for the demon."

"We're looking into the disappearances that've happened around here," Sam replied, his voice still a little raspy after the coughing. Dean resolved to hurry, and get him out of here as fast as possible. The last thing they needed was for him to get black lung disease or something. "We want to find out what happened to the people who've gone missing, and stop whatever's been causing it."

The colonel flickered, then nodded. "Mm. Just like the Marine."

That latched onto Dean's attention with the claws of a harpy. He knew what those felt like, unfortunately, since a set had been wrapped around his head once when he was nineteen and they'd been hunting a small, ragged flight of the winged hags up in the Sierra Nevadas. Some of the most exotic things they'd ever gone after.

"Wait. What?" he asked, taking a step forward. "What Marine? Like, do you mean a retired one? Looked just a little bit like the two of us?" He gestured back and forth between himself and Sam, his sudden excitement making the movement fast and jerky.

"I suppose." Colonel Moon scowled. "Navy. Cocky bastards, every single one of 'em. We didn't like him, and I hope he could tell that."

"'We'?" Sam asked, sounding mildly curious. Dean personally didn't give a rat's ass about if there were more ghosts or this one had just decided to consider himself British royalty all of a sudden, so he jumped in before an answer could be provided.

"Okay, so, this Marine you hated. What happened to him?" He steeled himself in order to ask the next question. "Did the demon get him?"

"No. No, he left before he ever so much as caught a glimpse of her," the ghost replied, looking unconcerned. His arms flashed down so his hands were folded on the desk, with no movement at all, then flashed back to their original position. "He told us he'd come back and finish up, for send someone in his place."

"And when was this?" Sam asked. Dean couldn't believe how perfectly calm he sounded, totally polite with just the smallest amount of concern to convey how much of a hurry they were in. Like they were interrogating some normal guy in his normal office.

"I'd say this morning."

Sam and Dean exchanged fast, excited, meaningful glances.

Colonel Moon turned his head and nodded decisively to something they couldn't see. Dean shifted his grip on his gun. "I don't understand why he's important. This demon came in here yesterday, got me and my men under her thumb...no idea at all exactly what she did, but we can't leave, can't drive her out...have to do everything she tells us to."

_Yesterday?_ Dean couldn't stop himself from raising an eyebrow. He knew for a fact that the disappearances had been going on for weeks before they even drew the attention of him and Dad. Maybe the ghost was screwing with them, but, in his experience, most spirits (especially older ones) weren't able to hold enough of their essence stable to be able to play any sort of mind games at all. It was way more likely that he just had absolutely no grasp of how time was actually passing. Which meant that Dad could have been here a week ago.

Damn it. Why couldn't anything ever be even just the tiniest bit easy?

"The people who've vanished," Sam pressed. Dean didn't entirely remember just what he'd explained to him about this case, so he wasn't sure if he'd picked up on Colonel Moon's obvious time discrepancy or not. When he'd been laying all the evidence out for him, he'd been all but drunk on how close he was, his scent, the way his hair curled over the tops of his ears. Not to mention lost and reeling from how Sam'd treated him when he showed up. He remembered laying out photographs of the people who'd gone missing at the base, having him listen to a tape recording of a voice (a guy shouting "I want her gone! Understand? I want her outta here!" which made a lot more sense now), and not much else. "What did she do to them?"

"Killed 'em." He said it nonchalantly. Dean guessed that, once you'd been dead for, say, over twenty years, other people dying just lost its effect on you. "She does it slow, draws it out, and makes us help." He sounded bitter, disgusted. "As near as I can tell, it's only for fun. A few of them are still hanging around, but they're absolutely furious, and scared. We tend to stay away from them."

"So...they're dangerous?" Dean asked, feeling his finger tighten on the trigger of his gun before he even realized he was doing it.

"They shouldn't give you any trouble," Colonel Moon replied with a shrug. "They're a bit shy around the living. Private Nakota will take you to the room where the demon killed them, if you're serious about hunting her. Like the Marine was. From there on out, though, you're on your own. We want nothing to do with her."

"Private Nakota...?" Sam had barely asked the question before a guy in outdated fatigues, which features that made it obvious at least one of his parents had been Japanese, flickered into sight next to the colonel's desk. Back ramrod-straight and arms folded neatly in a parade-rest position, he gave Sam and Dean a sharp, polite nod.

"Kill the host if you have to," Colonel Moon said. His tone was grim, but not necessarily concerned. "He's alive, so we have no business with him, but we'll take care of the body if you kill him driving the demon out." He shrugged, and spread his hands. "Whatever it takes."

Dean blinked, feeling a strange expression cross his face, and Sam laughed, incredulous, before exclaiming, _"Kill _him? Uh...Colonel Moon. Don't you know who the demon's host is?"

"No," he deadpanned, waving off Nakota's curious glance. "I don't really care, either. Just get rid of the demon, all right?"

"But - "

"He said he didn't care, Sam," Dean interrupted quietly, stomping down a sudden, powerful urge to put a comforting hand on his bicep and guide him out of the room. _Don't touch me. _"C'mon. We've got a demon to go after."

"Don't you think he deserves to _know?"_ Sam snapped, huge hands clenching into loose fists as he turned to glare at Dean. Dean met his helplessly-furious hazel gaze calmly, because this was the first argument they'd had so far that wasn't about their relationship, or their childhood. It was somehow comforting, but, at the same time, something fragile and childish ached inside him. Knowing that they just didn't have anything like what they used to, and they probably never would again. But he did his best to force himself to be happy with what he had. It definitely beat being yelled at about an attraction he couldn't help.

"No. Not really." Looking away from Sam, Dean shot Nakota a "lead-the-way" gesture. When his brother exhaled forcefully through his nose, the sound conveying frustration and anger, he rolled his eyes. He'd forgotten how freakishly-empathetic Sammy - _can't think of him like that, what's wrong with me _- was. Even with monsters. "I'm not sure how much it'd mean to him, even if we told him. Let's just make a really big effort not to murder Lucas and hope it earns us some bonus points in the long run."

Sam cast a glance at Colonel Moon, who appeared to be engaged in a deep conversation with something that, again, they couldn't see. He hadn't noticed what they were talking about, thank God. Dean so didn't want to have to deal with an old Army ghost demanding more information about his possessed son. Hunting, in his opinion, was about killing things that weren't human, not settling down for some sort of teary-eyed soap opera moment with them.

Of course, there were always more of his emotions involved than there should be, when Sam came into play. Fear for him, love, sympathy because he just wasn't quite like Dean and their dad...

But he couldn't afford to be thinking about that. He had to be professional.

So he shoved all of that out of his mind as Nakota led them out of Colonel Moon's office and down the hallway, appearing perfectly stable and normal at just about six feet in front of them, until he spontaneously flickered and jumped like a faulty television set. Dean focused just on making sure Sam wasn't about to walk into some sort of ambush and that nothing was sneaking up on them.

Nakota obviously knew the building like the back of his hand, but, of course, it made sense that he would, since he'd been here for so long with nothing really better to do than explore it. He led them through a spiderweb of halls that got Dean hopelessly confused (so he really hoped that Sam'd been paying more attention than him), pointed out discrete little doors and holes in the walls that they probably never would have picked out on their own, and wove a deft path around the rubble which, when they copied his movements exactly, let them move a whole hell of a lot faster than they had before.

They'd been wandering around all over what felt like the entire building for about half an hour before Nakota paused for a second, spotless boots stilling in a silky pool of ash.

"We're close," he said quietly. His voice was surprisingly deep, considering how slight his build was - almost too slender for a soldier. "I don't feel her anywhere around here, but...you should probably be on your guard. I've seen her move, and she's even faster than us."

Knowing that by "her," he meant the demonic bitch currently running around in Lucas Moon, Dean checked the barrel of his shotgun for any filth that might clog it and get in the way of a spray of rock salt, then just held it at the read. A faceful of salt wouldn't kill Lucas, just so long as the shot was taken from far enough away. It would really hurt the thing in him, though. Sam pumped his own weapon, arming it, and winced when the double click of it echoed just a little too loudly for comfort.

"Just down here - " Nakota took a few steps forward, and Dean moved to follow him, but froze when a voice, male and slightly panicked, echoed down the hall.

"Luke!"

Nakota didn't say a word, just fuzzed out of sight, and Dean swore under his breath. Freaking ghosts. He raised both his gun and his flashlight, aiming both the barrel and the beam at the distant end of the hallway and waiting for something he could shoot at to appear. He glanced at Sam, whose expression was closed down, calm. Focused. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen him like this.

"Think that's her?" Dean asked under his breath. "Uh...him?" He shook his head. "This whole thing's just weird...why couldn't this demon just possess some girl?"

"I don't think so," Sam replied quietly, apparently deciding to ignore his brother's complaint. "Why would she be running around shouting out the name of her own vessel?"

"Good point." Dean's shotgun snapped up with a faint _click _of metal as someone wandered into view at the end of the hall He saw red hair, a backpack, a bulky flashlight - not Lucas. But he didn't lower the gun, just started to walk forward, slowly, and shouted, "Federal marshals! Freeze!" in his best "authority" voice.

He was aware of Sam walking beside him, though not as close as he could be. The guy at the end of the hall froze, like he'd been told to, and raised both hands over his head. One was empty, one held a flashlight. Now that they were closer to him, Dean could see that he was in his early thirties, stocky, and absolutely terrified.

"I'm so sorry," he squeaked out. Sam lowered his shotgun and relaxed his stance with a slight, exasperated puff, but Dean didn't. "Please don't arrest me. I didn't mean to break any laws, I - I know I'm not supposed to be in here, but I'm..." He swallowed, loudly. "I'm looking for my partner. Luke Moon."

"Partner?" Dean lowered his gun and cocked his head slightly, just a little confused, the part of his brain that he'd been poisoning with pop culture since he was about six conjuring up vague thoughts about buddy-cop movies. He only got it when Sam coughed, quietly, the sound full of ridiculously-strong, pent-up emotions, and shifted away from him slightly. "Oh. _Oh."_ He did his best to resist an urge to look at Sam, to remember, but couldn't quite quell it. He was pretty sure that Sam was glaring at him out of the corners of his eyes. "So you and him are...okay."

The guy was giving him an unimpressed look, his fear fading, and he could almost hear him screaming "Homophobe!" inside his head. He wanted to explain to him that he was the last person who'd criticize him for being in a relationship with another guy, seeing as he'd done something that was considered so much worse, but he guessed that Sam would hit him again if he did.

"Wanna tell us your name?" Sam asked, focusing completely on the guy and (very pointedly) not Dean.

"Cal. Cal O'Neal. _Calvin _O'Neal." Slowly, he started to lower his hands. When they didn't object, he dropped them completely. "Are you going to arrest me?"

Calvin. That sounded a little familiar. "No. So long as you get your ass out of here right now."

"But - " Calvin glanced at Sam, his expression pleading. He must have already pegged him as the more sympathetic of the two. "I can't. I can't just _leave _Luke. I know he's in here somewhere, the police haven't done anything for two weeks, I've been looking for him for so long, and I'm not leaving without him...please." Sam looked a little uncomfortable, Dean noticed. His kneejerk response was to move closer to him, provide silent support, but he clamped down on that. "He means absolutely everything to me. I have to find him."

"We'll find him," Sam promised. "We think we know where he is - "

"What?! You do?!"

" - but it'll be dangerous."

"And, obviously, no offense to you, but we can't have untrained civilians running around underfoot while we're trying to do this," Dean added. He'd relaxed slightly, but he could tell that Calvin was still afraid of him. He kind of had that effect on people. He wasn't quite sure why they always picked him out as the scary one, since his partners - Dad, Sam - were bigger than he was.

"I'll stay out of the way." Calvin's mouth worked, like he was chewing on the inside of his lip. "C'mon. We've been together for almost ten years. Let me help you find him." He glanced back and forth between them. "Was he kidnapped? What did you mean when you said it'll be dangerous?"

"We're not exactly allowed to tell you that - " Dean began, because he figured that telling him his boyfriend was currently possessed by a sadistic demon wouldn't go over well.

"I'm begging you here!" Calvin spread his hands pleadingly. "Please..."

"Yeah, okay, that's it." Dean exhaled forcefully, then turned to Sam, who avoided his eyes. "Cuff him."

"No! Wait!" he practically yelped. Dean glanced at him with a raised eyebrow, waiting. "I...I'll go."

He pushed past them, shoulders hunched, looking about half his actual age. Dean didn't feel bad. They'd helped him, after all; it was for his own good.

He paused for a second, and glanced up at them. "I'm waiting outside. You can't stop me from doing that...and you had better have Luke with you when you come back out."

Dean watched him go, eyebrows drawn together, because he wasn't sure if he'd just been threatened by a guy who was, like, two feet shorter than him, or not. He was broken out of his thoughts by Sam's low, quiet voice.

"Think Nakota's coming back?" he asked, all the awkwardness that had just passed between them absent from his voice.. Dean shook his head.

"We'd better start looking for a pile of bodies," he replied. "He said we were close, so..." With a shrug, he made for the nearest doorway. "...let's see what's behind door number one."

The answer turned out to be rows and rows of blackened bunks. As they walked through them, carefully sweeping the beams of their flashlights under each one, Dean cleared his throat. He knew that saying what he wanted to was a really, _really _bad idea, and almost definitely violated whatever agreement had sprung up between them. But he couldn't stop himself. He hurt too bad, wanted too much. He absolutely had to bring the whole thing up again, even if it caused a fight.

"So. That Calvin guy," he started.

"Dean," Sam said, a low warning note in his voice. He had apparently picked up on something in his tone, and decided he didn't want to hear what was coming. Dean ignored him.

"He was really determined to find his partner," he went on.

"Don't." It sounded like he was gritting his teeth.

"He must have really loved him. He's been gone for weeks, but he's still looking for him. Still coming after him. He pretty much refused to leave until we forced him." He paused. "Real loyal. They must have had something special, and he doesn't want to lose that.

There was a slight creaking noise, and Dean glanced down at Sam's hand. His tanned knuckles had gone white, as he clenched the handle of his flashlight hard enough to make the plastic casing start to crack. He was looking firmly away when he answered, and his voice was so quiet Dean could barely hear him.

"He said they'd been together for ten years." Dean wanted to move closer, in order to better make out what he was saying, but he figured he'd pushed his luck enough for right now. "So they decided on a relationship when they were both responsible, consenting adults. Not when they were _five _and _ten." _He almost flinched at how bitter he sounded. "And they weren't brothers. They didn't have the same parents, they weren't raised together, they weren't trusted by their dad to take care of each other."

The mention of their father sparked a tiny flicker of fear and guilt in Dean's chest, but he didn't say a thing.

"What Lucas and Calvin had - have - isn't illegal. Or wrong on every level." Sam straightened so much it looked a little painful, and aimed his flashlight under a nearby bed. "They're totally different from us. And you'd better drop it, or I'm walking out right now."

It hurt. It stung, and ached, and throbbed, deep inside him, hearing that. But it didn't feel quite as bad as it might've.

"Okay. Sure thing."

Because he was sure he'd heard hesitation in Sam's voice, and guilt, and longing - and he was going to hang onto that with everything he had.


	9. Chapter 9

**I hope you guys like this one, because writing it and then getting it typed up nearly killed me...but it was so worth it. **

**This actually hurt to write, just a little bit, on an emotional level...I am so pathetic.**

**On another note. Um...wow. This thing has a whole lot of followers, favorites, and reviews, doesn't it? Again...wow. You guys are awesome, it means so much...I wasn't expecting this to be as popular as it's turned out to be. Seriously. Awesome. So awesome. I'm incredibly grateful to all of you, and I hope I'm meeting your expectations.**

* * *

"See anything?" Dean asked quietly, crouching down to peer underneath a bunk as he swept the beam of his flashlight under it.

"No." A ways away, facing firmly (if the last five minutes were any indication of the present) in the opposite direction from him, Sam paused, the crunching of his boots in the cinders fading for a second. "Can you stop asking me that every couple of minutes? You're _right here_ - you'll see something just as soon as I do."

"Okay. Sorry." He raised both eyebrows, even though he knew Sam couldn't see his expression, and straightened up. A cord scraped against his neck: the one that the amulet he kept under his shirt hung on. He'd have to be careful about it when they actually found this demon and started fighting with her - he'd been wearing it so long that it was easy to forget about it until something grabbed onto it during a brawl and tried to strangle him with it. "Guess I'm just a little impatient for this hunt to be over. I'm sure you can relate."

When Sam exhaled loudly through his nose, he regretted tacking that last sentence on there, even though he'd said it without so much as a whisper of hesitation. Maybe he'd offended him. If he had, he felt like punching himself in the face, because he really couldn't afford to do anything like that, not after he'd made the massive mistake of acting on his emotional urges and bringing up their relationship. Again. Even after they'd agreed not to talk about t anymore for the sake of the case and finding Dad.

But, weirdly enough, he didn't regret it. Even though it'd made Sam all prickly and standoffish again. It'd been so beyond worth it to hear that little shadow of what they used to have in his brother's voice.

Sam had apparently chosen not to reply to him, because he was moving again, the beam of his flashlight tracing a slow, simple pattern across the rubble-strewn floor. The light looked like it was dimming a little, as did Dean's own, which worried him a little. He had extra batteries in the duffel bag slung across his back, but he didn't want the demon to show up while they were switching them out. He didn't really like the idea of having to replace flashlight batteries in the middle of a fight, either. Jesus, they had about a million of these things in the arsenal in the back of the Impala; he should've brought more. Never mind the fact that they were the kind cops used, with parts of the casing made of heavy metal, and it would have been hell on his shoulders to carry around a couple of those in addition to everything else he already had in his duffel.

Raising the now-slightly-darker beam of his flashlight to the back wall of the good-sized room they were in, he saw bunks...bunks...a massive crack that looked like it'd been letting rainwater seep through it for years but wasn't wide enough for men their size to squeeze through...bunks...a door. Closed and completely unmarked except for a handprint that looked like it had been burned into the gray paint covering the metal. Streaks of sulfur stood out like yellow neon against the black and gray.

"Sam," Dean called, just because he was closer. Sam glanced at him briefly, a bitterly-annoyed expression that Dean chose to ignore crossing his face. He jerked his head in the direction of the door, indicating it by waggling the beam of his flashlight over the surface.

Reluctantly, Sam went over to it, stepping into the circle of light that Dean was keeping aimed at the door. He tried the handle, and, with an ominous creak of metal, it fell off in his hand. He turned and waved it at Dean, who just shrugged at his unimpressed expression.

"Want me to come over and kick it in for you?" he called. Sam rolled his eyes, turning back to the door, then raised a booted foot and slammed it into the metal. Dean tried not to notice how the muscles of his thigh flexed and rippled under the denim that covered them, and tried not to remember how it'd felt to have those long legs hooked over his hips. Pulling him closer and deeper while Sam's fingernails dug deep crescents in the skin of his shoulders and he gasped out his name.

The door shuddered open in a cloud of ash and dust as Dean forcibly yanked his mind away from that line of thinking, and Sam immediately took a huge step backwards, throwing one arm up over his nose and mouth, all but burying his face in the sleeve of his hoodie as he screwed his eyes shut and turned away. The smell that had spooked him hit Dean a second later - rotting flesh, musty blood, human suffering. He grimaced and cupped a hand over his nose, but it was more of a reflexive motion than one he actually needed. He still hated this kind of stench, of course, but he'd gotten used to it a long time ago. Sam must have gone soft in his two years off the job, if it bothered him this much.

"Want me to get you a bucket or something?" Dean asked casually, coming up beside him and dropping his hand from his nose without even thinking about it. Now that the initial shock had faded, he was just fine. "C'mon, Sammy - uh - Sam. Sam. I'm sorry." Embarrassed by his knee-jerk use of the nickname his brother apparently hated, and suddenly intensely aware of the tension that he had to have just spawned, he glanced away and rubbed the back of his neck. "...sorry."

Sam dropped his arm and took a deep breath - through his mouth - then gagged a little. With smells this thick and awful, you could usually taste them, too. Dean looked at him with carefully-disguised sympathy, his own veteran stomach feeling a little unsettled.

"I guess..." Sam hesitated, trailing off. He made very, _very _brief eye contact with Dean, obviously troubled. "It's...well, it's not that big of a deal." He swallowed, looking away. "Obviously, don't call me that, but, y'know, if you slip up for a second, if it comes out, you don't have to get so freaked out over it. You don't need to grovel like that."

_Thought you _liked _me to beg, every once in awhile._ Dean bit down on that and the suggestive smirk that would have gone with it, feeling an ache in his chest. He had no idea where the sudden urge to flirt with him had come from, but he knew he couldn't act on it. Even though this tiny little barrier between them had just been torn down.

"Well, okay, then," he said with a shrug. He raised his shotgun, and looked into the darkness past the doorway. "If you're sure."

"I just want to get rid of this demon," Sam said quietly, apparently by way of explanation. Dean paused before beelining for the source of that awful smell, glancing back at him.

"And find Dad, right?" he asked, keeping his tone light and gentle. Sam sighed, for what seemed like the millionth time so far, and ran a hand over his face.

"Colonel Moon told us that Dad left," he pointed out. "He's probably been gone for awhile, which means we're obviously not going to find him today."

"Right...and you have to go back to Stanford tonight." He smiled at him, but it hurt a little. Sam looked back, hazel eyes tired and resigned.

"Don't start this again," he said, shaking his head slightly.

"Okay." Dean's voice was quiet when he said it. He didn't want a fight - not here, not now, when they were in so much danger. "I wasn't trying to. Sorry." Hoping to move past the awkwardness, he cleared his throat, loudly. "Y'know, we need a plan before we go charging in there. How are we going to get rid of this demon?"

"Uh..." Sam rubbed a hand up through his hair, obviously thinking. "Well - "

"I swear, if you say we're gonna splash holy water on her until she skedaddles..." he warned, shaking his head. "I was joking when I suggested that earlier."

"I know, I know." Frowning, Sam was silent for a couple of minutes, then suddenly looked at him (very carefully avoiding his eyes, Dean noticed) and snapped his fingers. "Dad had us memorize an exorcism ritual awhile back."

"When was this?" Dean asked blankly. He didn't remember anything like that.

"Right after that last demon hunt. When he...uh...left us all alone together..." He glanced away, rubbing the back of his neck, and Dean suppressed a sigh. "Anyway. I still remember it. At least, part of it. I think I do."

"You _think?"_ Dean asked skeptically.

"I _know," _Sam amended. "I remember the important parts, at least, and I can probably fill in everything else." He shrugged, but there was a hint of pride in his voice as he added, "I'm taking a couple of Latin courses. Knew they'd come in handy."

"Whatever you say, Caesar." Dean resisted the urge to roll his eyes, because this was obviously something that mattered to him. At least a little bit. "You'd just better not choke. If you forget what you're supposed to say, then..." He grimaced at the thought that had just crossed his mind. "I guess a host's not much use to a demon if it's banged up enough. Like, limbs missing, or - ick - head..."

"Yeah. Let's hope it doesn't come to that." Sam looked a little green. "Don't worry. I remember it."

"Good enough for me. C'mon." He pumped his shotgun, just to be safe, and jerked his head towards the doorway. "Let's go be heroes."

* * *

They found a whole lot of bodies, most disassembled into at least two pieces; some arcane-looking symbols scrawled out onto the concrete walls in a sticky mixture of blood and sulfur; a couple terrified, rapidly-flickering ghosts that Sam tried (and miserably failed) to calm down a little. Just a lot of horrible stuff that Dean couldn't help but feel was some sort of bizarre decorating, an attempt to nest or roost, and maybe make this base feel a little more like home. Wherever home was for a demon abroad. Hell or some other place (because he knew that, sometimes, things didn't match their most common legends). The whole place, as they moved slowly through it with their guns at the ready, was a nightmare - so, basically, exactly what he'd expected.

"How long've we been in here?" Sam asked after awhile. He was holding up a whole lot better than Dean had expected, after his reaction to the smell.

"Dunno." Dean aimed his flashlight at his watch, a cheap, black rubber-and-plastic analogue thing he'd picked up at Walgreen's about five years back, after the corrosive blood of something-or-other ate his old one. "An hour, maybe? Two?" He tapped his flashlight against the plastic bubble that covered the face of his watch. But the hands, which were frozen behind it, stayed totally still. "I think those ghosts screwed with my watch."

"They could've killed the battery..." Sam shrugged, looking away. "I mean, we know that most spirits have their own electromagnetic fields, which might - "

"Wow, that sounds really super-interesting and all, but I'm afraid I'm gonna have to take a rain check here," Dean interrupted. He definitely remembered how chatty Sam could get if you let him really get into all the quirky scientific properties of monsters, and, while he'd be ecstatic to listen to him for hours once they got out of here, he didn't think that it would be a good idea right now. "Just tell me if you see any sign of that Lucy bitch."

"Uh." Sam paused, right next to a shoe that may or may not have a severed foot in it. Noticing it, he grimaced, but didn't move away. "...who?"

"Our demon. She needed a name. Her host's name is Lucas, but we can't call her that, because she's not him. So...Lucas, Lucy. It makes sense." He shrugged. "Doesn't it?"

Sam made a face. "'Lucy'?"

"Well, what did _you _plan on calling her?" Dean challenged, fighting a smile because this was just so _easy _and there was no tension or resentment at all. Right now, right here, it felt almost like the old days. Not quite, but almost.

"Just...'the demon', I guess." Sam shrugged again and turned away, his tone light but a little distant. Dean's heart sank a little, as he picked that out.

"You could be just a little more - " he started, but he was interrupted by a sudden yell as Sam's feet left the floor, his torso in the grip of something neither of them could see. He whirled towards him, a snarl twisting his mouth as he looked for whatever was doing this, and when Sam gave a pained grunt as he slammed into the nearest wall, he felt it like a knife to his heart. "Sammy!"

"Dean - " Unbelievably, there was a quick flicker of irritation in his hazel eyes - _really? Is this _really _the time?_ - but then he glanced behind him, and they widened.

Dean whirled around just in time to see Lucas Moon, hair tangled with ash and sulfur, face spattered with gore and arms a rusty brown all the way up to the elbows with dried blood. One hand was outstretched, aimed at Sam, and his gray eyes were half-lidded in an almost-lazy expression.

"I like 'Lucy' better than 'the demon'," he said, voice deep and mellow. "But not much."

He flattened his palm, and, behind Dean, Sam cried out a little. Dean didn't hesitate for so much as a second before swinging his shotgun up and blasting Lucas in the chest.

He screamed as dozens of tiny, ragged holes, thinly ringed with blood, appeared in his green T-shirt and the force of the shot made him jerk backward slightly. The noise sounded just a little too high-pitched and feminine for Dean to be comfortable with it coming out of his mouth. His hand dropped, and, judging by the thud and groan from behind Dean, so did Sam. His first instinct was to spin around, run right to his side and make sure he wasn't hurt, and it was so strong it was nearly painful, but he kept his gun trained on Lucas. He hoped to God that neither he nor the demon possessing him knew enough about guns to figure out that he'd just used up the one shot he had.

Lucas raked a clawlike hand across his chest, where steam was streaming out of the tiny wounds, and he snarled. When he looked up at Dean, his eyes were a solid black. Dean raised one eyebrow, thinking of black smoke, but didn't comment.

"Sam?" he called, without turning his head or taking his eyes off the demon. "Anything broken? Bleeding?"

"No," Sam gasped, and Dean heard him struggle to his feet. "I'm okay."

"Mind getting over here, then?" He adjusted his empty gun, handling it as if he had another shot left. Teeth bared and shoulders hunched inward, around his wounded chest, Lucas glared at him with black eyes, motionless. He really had to start thinking of him as a _her_ - Lucy - since Lucas Moon obviously wasn't pulling the strings. But it was just sort of difficult, faced with broad shoulders and lean limbs and an unmistakably-male face. Dark hair, dark eyes, pretty tall, built - for an older guy, Luke would totally be his type, if those dark eyes didn't come from demonic possession.

Dark hair, dark eyes. Now he was thinking about Sam again, in a way that was entirely inappropriate for the situation. Pretty tall, built. Great. He really had to stop keeping his brain in his dick...and his heart.

"Grab your gun," he ordered Sam, watching Lucas - Lucy - as she apparently assessed the situation. "There's a thing of salt in my bag - dig it out, make a circle around her, and then we can get this show on the road."

"Give me a minute." Sam's boots crunched heavily over the debris on the floor, way too much of it grisly and horrifying, as Dean knew.

"We don't really _have _a minute, Samm - " He caught himself just in time. "We don't really have a minute, Sam. Our demonic cross-dresser is looking a little impatient over here.

As if to illustrate his words, Lucy straightened up, pulling her torn shirt tight across her chest without any hint of pain. Her eyes glittered in the light of Dean's flashlight, which he kept trained squarely on her face. He raised the barrel of the shotgun slightly, with a clicking of metal.

"You make any move at all, and I'll aim a lot higher next time," he said with a quick smile, hearing Sam stoop once behind him to pick up his gun, then again, probably for his flashlight. He'd dropped both when the demon threw him against a wall.

"Yeah." She grinned, stretching Lucas's mouth way too wide. Dean felt his face twitch into a small grimace of the disgust he felt for everything he hunted. "No way. At this range...the salt would go through his eyes. Maybe even his skull." Her grin widened, and she gestured to her eyes with a long-fingered hand. "Kill him instantly. And you're hunters, aren't you? Protectors of human life, mankind's first and only line of defense against the darkness?" Dean felt Sam unzip his bag and dig through it, and his warm breath ghosted across the back of his neck. He wanted to lean back, feel Sam's strong chest against his back and his arms around him in a gentle embrace. He was also extremely aware of just how close to his ass those big hands of his were, but he did his best to focus on more important stuff. "You won't take the chance that you might kill the guy I'm wearing...will you?"

"Don't be so sure, sweetheart." Sam zipped his bag back up, and finally moved into his line of sight, looking disheveled and more than a little shell-shocked. He was carrying his gun in one hand and the canister of salt that Dean had told him about in the other, with his flashlight tucked up under one arm. He paused, looking at Lucy warily, but she didn't seem very interested in him. Dean nodded to him slightly, telling him to get going without saying a word. "I wouldn't underestimate just how much I want your smoky ass outta here."

"Ooh," she said, narrowing her eyes at him. "So _angry. _The first one wasn't like that, you know; he just scoped the place out and left. I liked him. You, though...hey, what did I ever do to you?"

"You've been killing people," Dean said with a shrug. Sam shook out a thin line of salt onto the floor and started to draw a clumsy circle around Lucy and her host, making absolute sure that there were no breaks in it. She glanced at him, mildly interested, and Dean wondered if she understood what he was doing. "You kidnapped a guy. You're squatting someplace with about a million 'no trespassing' signs tacked onto it...y'know, even normal, vanilla people don't look too kindly on any of that." He shook his head slightly, his focus completely taken up with keeping her looking at him. So she didn't throw Sam into another wall and screw up his circle, or - way more importantly - hurt him. He didn't have to worry, looked like; she glanced over at Sam again, and just rolled her eyes at his endeavors. He looked up at her, eyes dark and frightened and guarded. "But, of course, _they _wouldn't know or care that you're not human, you're a monster, or that you're some black-eyed bitch of a smoke cloud. And I do." His lips twitched into something that wasn't quite a smile. "I'm not afraid to admit I hate you for what you are."

She studied him, face impassive and head cocked to the side. Those creepy all-black eyes roved over the line of his brow, his eye sockets, his cheekbones, his chin. He glared back. She blinked, and the black vanished from Lucas Moon's gray eyes with a sound like an insect retracting its wings under its shell. Then she cocked her head to the other side, still looking at him, and a slow smile spread across her stolen face. Dean didn't like that.

"Are you sure you don't hate me because I touched him?" Lucy whispered. Suddenly, her hand, curled into a claw, jerked up, and so did Sam. His eyes were bulging and his mouth was open, like something had him by the throat, and his body was ram-rod straight because he had no choice. Dean gritted his teeth and pulled the trigger of his gun, nothing mattering to him in that instant but helping him. He felt like an invisible hand was around his own throat.

The hammer fell on an empty chamber, obviously, because the one shot that he'd had was buried superficially in Lucas's chest. Lucy's smile morphed into a vicious grin, and, with what looked like a huge effort, she drew her arm back and flung Sam across the room. The grin dissolved into a grunt of exertion as she did. He didn't go as far this time, didn't hit any walls, but the agonized, shocked sound that he made when he slammed into the debris-strewn ground with a heavy _thud _ignited immediate rage somewhere in Dean's chest cavity.

Lucy was drooping a little, looking exhausted, like it had been unbelievably difficult for her to throw Sam. So she didn't have time to react when Dean strode forward, swung the barrel of his shotgun across her throat, and grabbed both ends from behind, choking her and forcing her to the ground. He wasn't sure if depriving her of air would do a whole lot of good, her being a demon and all, but there was iron in the steel of the barrel, and iron burned. Her hands twitched as he hauled back viciously on the gun as she gagged and sputtered, and he felt faint tugging at his clothes and limbs. But it didn't come anywhere near to him being ripped off of her.

"What's the matter, can't get it up?" he snarled. "Forgot your little blue pill at home?" He drove a knee into her back, and her legs weakened, making it so more of her weight pressed down on the gun in his hands. "You _bitch, _he didn't do a damn thing to you, _how fucking dare _you hurt him like that - "

With tremendous force, Lucy reached up and yanked the gun out of his grip, then hissed and hurled it away as steam rose from her hands and throat. When she glanced over her shoulder at him, eyes black again, he didn't hesitate before punching her in the mouth so hard he felt the skin on his knuckles split open.

She collapsed down into the ash that covered the floor, looking stunned, and Dean pulled off his duffel bag and flung it aside before dropping into a crouch. Lucy's eyes focused on him, and she smiled to expose Lucas's blood-webbed teeth.

"Almost the exact same cheekbones," she murmured. "He's your brother, isn't he?" She tilted her head to look back at Sam, who was, slowly and painfully, getting to his feet. Blood streaked his face from a wound up past his hairline, and, seeing that, Dean's anger flared even hotter.

"You shut up," he warned.

Lucy blinked - again with the insect-wing noise - and her eyes were gray and human. She studied him, muttering, "But the feelings you have for him..."

"I told you to _shut up." _Dean leaned over to pick up a handful of salt. He whipped an unintentional mixture of salt and soot into Lucy's face, and felt a deep, vindictive satisfaction when her body arched and she howled in pain. But then she grinned savagely at him in sudden understanding, chest heaving, eyes so black they almost glowed with their own impossible anti-light, and spoke.

"You sick, twisted, monstrous man," she wheezed out. "So. Did you rape him, or was he your willing slut?"

Dean didn't think before hitting her again, the salt on her face making the cuts on his knuckles sting. He clipped Lucas's cheekbone and knocked Lucy back down, then slammed into his temple with his other hand, and drove a knee into a surprisingly-yielding stomach as he punched her in the mouth again. But Lucy was laughing.

"Are you the older one?" She grinned with split lips. "Did he trust his big brother to take care of him, and you took advantage of that, made him your sex toy before he was even old enough to understand it? Or did he _beg _for it?"

"You don't talk about him like that." His bleeding fist smashed into her again, making Lucas's head snap to one side. "And I thought I told you to shut up."

Lucy's eyes opened just a slit, and she smiled.

_"Freak," _she hissed. "Sodomist. Incestuous abomi - "

Dean's hands locked around her neck, cutting off the rest of the word into a gag. He felt his face twitch with the unbearable rage he was feeling.

"Shut," he snarled through gritted teeth, "up."

He knew that what he was doing was hurting her host a whole hell of a lot more than it was actually hurting the demon herself, but he didn't care. Every time he thought about letting go, he saw Sam's face twist with pain when he slammed into that wall, heard the thud as he hit the floor. And his hands just tightened. Lucy choked, and Lucas's windpipe creaked a little underneath his fingers.

"Dean."

Sam's voice, pretty much the only thing that could reach him right now, made him pause a little. Lucy sucked in a tiny, tortured breath.

"Dean!"

He sounded panicked, urgent, and, slowly, Dean started to let go. Then a hand grabbed his shoulder and hauled him up and back, and he blinked, feeling exactly like he was waking up from a deep sleep except for the fact that he was exhausted.

"You were gonna kill him!" Sam let go of him, and he saw his face, streaked with blood and ash and definitely excited, but not necessarily angry. "I don't - I don't think you were actually hurting the demon...I'm pretty sure you were just strangling Lucas."

Dean, breathing hard, shrugged with a tiny smile. "She was choking, wasn't she?"

"I..." Sam started to say something, but trailed off, as his eyes dropped from Dean's face down onto his upper chest. Dean wasn't paying too much attention to him, so he didn't notice. He was looking at the crooked circle of salt that he'd just barely been dragged over without damaging. Sam must have finished it while he was beating the crap out of Lucy, trapping her inside.

"Okay." He looked at Sam, and motioned with one bleeding hand. "C'mon. Let's get rid of her."

Sam nodded wordlessly, eyes still fixed on something on Dean's chest, but he coughed to clear his throat of ash other gunk so he could speak clearly.

Lucy struggled into an upright position right before Sam said the first Latin word of the exorcism that would send her back to Hell, and she screamed. It was practically music to Dean's ears. Sam's face was completely impassive while he chanted over a period of forty-five minutes, sometimes stumbling or forgetting or improvising but always going on, but he did step back and look a little weirded out when Lucy's host fell to his knees and black smoke boiled out of his mouth. Lucas collapsed limply while a black cloud twisted and writhed above him, and then it billowed out of the salt circle, sweeping downwards and away.

"Sayonara, bitch," Dean said, flipping a tiny salute as the smoke streamed past him with what almost sounded like a shriek. It was gone within seconds, and he had a feeling that it wouldn't come near this area ever again, even if it did manage to claw its way back out of Hell (could they do that?). It might even think twice before possessing another human. He hoped.

They roused a groggy, confused Lucas, who wanted to know why his face, chest, and throat hurt, and why there was dried blood all over his arms, and why his mouth tasted like sulfur. He seemed like a nice enough guy, if more than a little whiny, but Dean was willing to forgive him for that after what he'd been through. Even if he definitely wasn't going to explain anything to him, for his own sake.

While escorting Lucas out through the confusing maze of hallways, no ghosts really appeared to them. At least, not more than once.

Colonel Moon flickered into sight right in front of them (Lucas choked suddenly, eyes bugging out), and saluted smartly before tossing a scarred, leather-bound book into the ashes at their feet. A book that looked familiar, and Dean's heart jolted as he stooped to pick it up. Dad's journal.

"My men and I are extremely grateful to you," he said, ignoring Lucas even as he stared, open-mouthed, at him. He looked back and forth between Sam and Dean. "The Marine left that here...with instructions to give it to those who followed him." He grimaced a little. "He wasn't much of a writer, but I assume he meant you."

And then he was gone, leaving Lucas to shakily rasp out, "...Dad?"

"Not really," Dean said, clapping a hand onto his shoulder as he held onto the journal with his knuckles white. "C'mon. Let's get you out of here before those gunshot wounds get infected."

After that, he kept seeing flickers of ghosts out of the corners of his eyes. Colonel Moon, Nakota, and a couple other soldier types, all saluting. As someone who didn't usually receive a lot of recognition or thanks for his work, he had to admit that it felt good. Good enough for him to hand Lucas over to Calvin with nothing more than a tired smile, even when the little guy accused them of shoddy policework and threatened to sue them for the condition that they'd brought his boyfriend back in. Lucas calmed him down, though, while looking at the Winchesters with troubled gray eyes, Dean wondered just how much he remembered. For his sake, he hoped that it wasn't much.

They made a beeline back to where the car was parked once Calvin's back was turned, trusting him to get Lucas to a hospital. To be honest, Dean didn't care even if he just took him home - his responsibility ended the second that everyone in his general vicinity was no longer in danger from anything supernatural. Before hopping the fence, he paused to stretch under the mid-afternoon sun, aware of every aching muscle and grain of ash, but just enjoying the warmth anyway. He also felt the slight weight of his amulet against his sternum, even through the fabric of his T-shirt, and realized that it must have fallen out of its usual place during the fight and swung loose. That was what Sam had been staring at. Was still staring at, actually, he saw when he opened his eyes. Sam spoke before he could ask the obvious question.

"So. You still have it," he said quietly, and there was no question what he was talking about. He didn't sound angry. A little lost, maybe, a little confused or awed, but not angry. "You still wear it."

"Every day." Dean laced his fingers together in preparation to give his brother a boost up. "I can't focus on anything at all unless I have it around my neck."

Sam didn't put a foot in his joined hands. "It...really means that much to you?"

"Of course it does. It always has." Dean could feel Sam's small, eight-year-old hands slipping the cord over his head, then pausing to cup either side of his face to kiss him. He remembered laughing, pulling the tiny, fragile, warm body of his precious baby brother closer, to hold him tight. It'd been another Christmas with Dad AWOL, hunting or holed up with some lonely woman or maybe just drunk, but he'd had Sam. "It's the most important thing I have, anymore."

_Because you gave it to me. Because I love you like I have never loved anyone or anything else, and never will. Because it's like carrying a little piece of you with me wherever you go...but, hell, it can't compare to your touch or your presence or your voice. Not at all._

He didn't add that, even though it immediately popped into his head.

Sam was looking at him with something unreadable in his eyes, something soft and familiar that made Dean hope for what he couldn't have. He was pretty close to figuring out what it was when he asked, "Why do you keep it under your shirt?"

Dean shrugged, a little uncomfortable. "Well, I don't wanna lose it, or have something grab onto it while I'm fighting. It's easier for me to keep it safe this way."

Sam looked away, expression gentler than it'd been around him in days, but he didn't say anything. Dean flexed his hands.

"So," he prompted. "Ready to go?"

"Yeah...I can do it myself." Sam waved away his hands, stepping forward to hook his fingers through the wire loops of the fence. He looked up at the top, then sighed. "In a minute." He turned around and leaned his back heavily against the fence, putting a hand on his head as he bowed it. Dean walked over to him.

"Your head hurt?" he asked. Sam nodded, closing his eyes.

"Is it still bleeding?" he asked, opening them. Dean hesitated. Sam's long fingers were buried in his ash-matted hair, but on the wrong side of his head for him to lift it so he could see the wound. And he wasn't making any move. His hazel eyes were perfectly steady.

Very, very slowly, Dean raised a hand, and reached for Sam's face until his fingertips brushed the fringe of hair that fell over his forehead. Sam stiffened slightly under his touch, eyes fixed on nothing and mouth working like he was chewing on the inside of his lip, but he didn't shove him away. Encouraged, Dean gently swept his hair aside, to expose pale, tender skin and a shallow, oozing gash. He could feel Sam's heat against his hand, and his hair was so amazingly soft under the ash.

"Nah," he said softly, fully aware of how husky his voice was. "Looks like it's closing up." Very lightly, he rested his fingertips on Sam's temple, and felt him shudder a little. He didn't realize he was leaning in until his little brother's clean, masculine scent cut through the soot and the sweat. "Sam..." Dean hesitated. His lips were chapped, but Sam's looked soft and pink and full. "I was so worried about you."

Sam's eyes fluttered closed, and a tiny sigh puffed out of him. Dean felt like something was squeezing his heart, but it felt good. He probably would've moved his hand around to cup the back of his head, and kissed him right then and there no matter what, if he hadn't suddenly reached up to gently grip his wrist. Slowly, he pulled his hand off his head and let it go, before turning his face away and murmuring, "Don't touch me."

There was no anger behind it, no conviction. He might as well have been reading off a page.

With the moment over, they scaled the fence, and Dean unlocked the Impala. After putting the guns, flashlights, and Dad's journal, which they couldn't be bothered to look at right now, into the arsenal, as well as all the weaponry in his duffel bag (he didn't want anything going off in the back seat while he was driving), he tossed it into the back seat and opened the driver's door. He hesitated before getting in.

"Want me to take you back to Stanford now?" he asked. Sam, mirroring his position on the other side of the car, shook his hair out of his eyes and squinted at him.

"Uh. Right now?" he asked.

"Sure." Dean shrugged. "I mean, I can get you there in..." He glanced at his watch, saw that it was still dead, and scowled through a muttered curse. "Not very long."

"Well, all my stuff is back at the motel," he pointed out. "And I'd kinda like to shower and get something to eat. I just fought a _demon."_

_"I _fought a demon," Dean corrected. _"You _got thrown around by a demon and then splashed holy water on it."

Sam rolled his eyes. "I'm filthy and I'm starving. Gimme a break."

"All right, all right, we'll get you a shower and a burger." He ducked into the car. "But we'd better leave right after that, if you wanna get back in time to get a good night's sleep before your interview."

When Sam climbed into the passenger seat, but didn't say a thing, Dean glanced over at him. "You _do _want that, right?"

"I..." A tiny, strained smile flickered across his face, and he didn't make eye contact. "I don't know." He looked over at him. "We still haven't found Dad."

"That doesn't have to be your problem," Dean pointed out, shaking his head. Sam looked away again.

"I'm not sure you should take me back just yet." He swallowed. "Look, I'll just...I'll think about it."

"Okay." Dean started the car. "In the end, it's your call."

He knew that this really didn't mean anything, and he shouldn't be nearly as excited as he was. But he couldn't help it.

* * *

Sam rubbed a hand up through his still-damp hair, cell phone pressed to his ear and feet bare on the stubbly carpet of the motel room. In one ear, he heard the electronic ringing of another phone. In the other, he heard running water as Dean showered. He knew that it was going to take awhile, because it'd taken him a while to feel totally clean. He still felt like there was ash rubbing between his jeans and T-shirt and his skin. So, he had plenty of time to do this.

The ringing finally stopped, as the person on the other end picked up. Jess's voice was like balm on his frayed nerves as she answered.

"Sam?" she asked, her voice perky. Good; he hadn't woken her up this time. "Hi! Is everything going okay?" There was a pause, and he imagined her glancing at the nearest clock. "Are you on your way home?"

"Hey, Jess." He felt a sheepish, broken smile on his face, even though he knew she couldn't see it. "Actually...no, I'm not."

"You might want to hurry - it's getting kind of late." The words were perfectly casual, but there was an edge of worry to them. She must have picked up on something in his tone. Which wasn't surprising, considering how well she knew him...how much she cared about him. The feeling was completely mutual, which was why he dreaded explaining this to her.

"Jess..." He ran a hand through his hair again as he started to pace next to his bed, the carpet rough as sandpaper against his feet. He was way too aware of the muffled sound of water hitting the linoleum floor of the shower in the bathroom. Dean was completely naked, every muscle outlined in glittering water, only yards away from him. He felt his cock twitch involuntarily in his clean boxers at the thought, and gritted his teeth. Wrong, wrong, wrong...he was talking to his girlfriend. He had to focus on her. It was way more normal that way. "I don't think I'm going to make it home in time for the interview." He rubbed a hand over his face as he said it, closing his eyes.

She was quiet for a long time. Sam couldn't help but see her in their kitchen, leaning against the counter with her arms and ankles crossed and her lower lip being slowly worried between her teeth. The image was so vivid it startled him - he could pick out the faded patches on the skinny jeans he imagined her to be wearing, the creases of her T-shirt where it stretched over her breasts, the polish on her toenails.

"Your dad's still missing, huh?" she finally said. Her voice was soft and sympathetic, not angry or confused at all, and he was overwhelmed by a sudden swell of love.

"Yeah. Yeah, he is." He lowered himself onto the bed, the mattress creaking under his weight.

"And you want to find him, of course you do," Jess said gently. Sam didn't correct her, even though it was less of a "want to" thing and more of an obligation. His father could've hurt him badly, when he saw what he was doing with Dean. He could've thrown him out. But he hadn't, and Sam figured he owed him something for that. "Have you told your brother you don't want to go home yet? What does he think?"

Sam thought of Dean's fingertips on his temple, the touch incredibly tender, as he said, "He's offered to drive me home. He told me that this whole thing doesn't have to be my problem, but..." He hesitated. "Jess. You remember what I told you about him, right?"

"That you two don't get along?"

"No. That he needs me, because he's not used to flying solo." He swallowed. "I can't...I can't leave him right now. Not until we find our dad." He sighed deeply. "I'm so sorry."

"Sam...sweetheart." Jess only used pet names with him when she sensed he needed a lot of extra comfort. Otherwise, she knew that he thought it just felt cheap, because he'd told her. He left out that it'd stemmed from the fact that Dean had rarely called him anything but "Sammy" during sex. He'd only used names like "baby boy" and "little brother" and "kiddo" every once in awhile. "Don't apologize, okay? They're your family - I get it. And you've got the next best thing to a four-point-oh GPA. Stanford'd have to be crazy not to let you reschedule your interview."

"You really think so?" he asked softly.

"I really do. Do you want to call them yourself to cancel, or would it be easier if I did?"

"No. No, don't worry, Jess, I can do it." He laughed, humorlessly. "They're going to be furious."

"Well, forget them. It's a family emergency, you don't have a choice." She paused. "Maybe you should talk to the police, though. If you don't find your dad in a couple of days."

"I'm not real sure they'd be able to help." John Winchester wasn't exactly on the right side of the law. Or even registered with it, since about 1984.

"Well...if you say so." Jess sounded a little troubled. "I miss you."

"I miss you, too. So much," he replied.

"Call me every day?" she asked.

"I will. I promise." He turned away from the bathroom door, closing his eyes.

"Take care of your brother," she told him. "I really think you care about him a lot more than you think you do."

Sam swallowed again, feeling something shift uncomfortably inside him when he thought about Dean and, then, the amulet. It had stayed in his mind ever since he saw it swinging around Dean's neck, the bronze catching the harsh sunlight and burning an image on his retinas. He'd been thinking about it while he showered. Even though Dean had been in the next room, he hadn't been afraid. He'd locked the door, but he hadn't hurried while he'd been cleaning himself, despite his early concern that his brother just might not be able to control himself with him naked and vulnerable and so close. Some part of him felt safe around Dean. He had no idea what was going on with him, and he wasn't entirely sure that he didn't like it. That scared him more than any monster or demon ever could.

"Uh...yeah..." He rubbed his eyes. "I love you."

"Love you, too, Sam. Talk to you tomorrow...bye."

She hung up, and he did the same. He watched the bathroom door, and waited for Dean to come out.


	10. Chapter 10

**This chapter was brought to you by insomnia caused by the season nine premier.**

**Because I haven't updated in awhile (long, horrible story short: school) and you guys have been so amazing, favoriting, following, and reviewing, have a long, fluffy chapter.**

**You're going to have to wait a little longer for sex, though.**

**Let the story progress...**

* * *

"So...what's our next case?" Sam asked, dropping into the passenger seat of the Impala after carefully settling his backpack into the back seat, mindful of his laptop. "Where are we going? Because I was on a couple of news sites this morning, and I found something in North Carolina that looks a lot like a - "

"Sure you don't want me to take you back to Stanford?" Dean interrupted, looking over at him. Sam blinked.

"I...yes. We had this conversation last night, didn't we?"

"Just checking," he said with a shrug. "In case you changed your mind or something. Anyway...we're going here." He reached into the back seat and snagged their dad's battered, scarred, leather-bound journal. The one that Colonel Moon had given to them yesterday, after they exorcised the demon from his son.

Privately, Sam didn't think that was a good sign. Even after filling it up completely except for a couple pages in the very back, their father had refused to go anywhere without that journal. It held every single thing he knew about hunting, and the only object he kept closer to himself was his handgun. It was doubtful that he would've willingly left it with a ghost in an abandoned Army base.

And, if Sam was being completely honest with himself, there was another reason the journal made him uncomfortable. Having what was basically a piece of his father so near was a constant, guilt-triggering reminder of why he couldn't let his guard down around Dean. Or get close to him. Or touch him. And it was also a reminder of what their dad's reaction would be if they found him and he saw them together.

Dean dropped the journal on the center console and flipped it open, tapping a blue sticky note on the first page. Sam leaned over to see two numbers, in his dad's rounded scrawl, on the paper. He was very aware of how close his face was to Dean's.

"Are those - " he started, not looking at his brother in an effort to control himself, but Dean cut him off.

"Coordinates? Yep." He nodded. "I looked 'em up - "

"With what?" Sam demanded, leaning back into his original position and glaring at him. He was pretty sure he already knew the answer.

"Your laptop." Seeing his expression, Dean rolled his eyes. But Sam saw sudden fear in the movement, terror that he might have crossed a line and driven him away again. "You were asleep, and I didn't wanna go to the library."

"There was a password - "

"Yeah, you should've made it something other than your favorite character from _Lord of the Rings," _Dean replied. Sam blinked, shocked.

"You...knew which one it was?" he asked, his voice quiet.

"Of course I did. You read those books when you were ten, and you barely shut up about 'em," Dean said, shrugging. The fear was gone now; he must be satisfied that he hadn't pissed Sam off. "I remember how much you liked...whatever his name was...it was something weird, it's on the tip of my tongue. I remembered it this morning...anyway. Fifth thing I tried." He coughed, looking suddenly uncomfortable. "Uh...yeah." Starting the engine, he gave Sam a quick glance before facing forward again. "It's Snyder, Texas. Did some research on the place, and I think I know why Dad wants us to go there."

"Great. He's not even here, and he's still bossing us around," Sam muttered, resting his chin in his hand and looking out the window on his side as Dean pulled out. He felt his eyes on him, but he couldn't tell what he was thinking without looking at him, and he didn't say anything. At least, not about that.

"People have been turning up mutilated," he went on, like Sam hadn't said a thing. "Like, _really _mutilated. Guts eaten out, lips ripped off. And they're all in public places. Schools, parks, stores, stuff like that. The police reports don't mention anything weirder than that, but there might be something they're keeping quiet so the civvies don't freak out. We're gonna have to pull out some FBI badges and ask around, 'cause I didn't want to wake you up to hack into their database."

"You should've," Sam said with a shrug that was little more than a twitch of one shoulder. "I mean, it's a job, and Dad's sending us on it, so it's a little more important than letting me sleep in."

"Aw, but you looked so peaceful!" Dean exclaimed. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Sam noticed that he didn't say "cute" or "sweet," and a strangely-mixed wave of gratitude and disappointment rolled through him. "Besides. That demon really tossed you around yesterday, and I figured you needed the rest." He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, focused on the road. "Which reminds me. How's your head?"

Sam's free hand automatically went to the gauze pad taped over the wound under his hair. He'd cleaned and dressed it by himself, both last night and earlier that morning, because he was wary of letting Dean's hands anywhere near his head again. He remembered being touched by him yesterday, as he checked to see if the gash he'd gotten while fighting the demon they had been after was still bleeding, as clearly as if it'd been seared onto the lobes of his brain with a branding iron. He remembered what he'd felt and what he'd wanted - all of it just about as taboo as it could get.

He probably shouldn't've slept in the same room as Dean, after that. It was wrong and dangerous to be so close and vulnerable while his emotions were messed up like this, and he knew that. But, after spending a couple hours stumbling over piles of dismembered bodies and being tossed around by a malicious demon, it was comforting to have his big brother so close. It was irritating to Sam, that he was weak enough to feel that way (especially about Dean), and he'd never admit it. But he hadn't exactly made any progress on controlling that.

"Well, obviously, it still hurts, but it's not distracting or anything," he answered with another twitchy shrug. "No nausea, no blurred vision, no balance problems...so it's not a concussion. I'm fine."

"Good. Glad to hear that." Dean didn't look at him as he added, "Try and keep it from getting infected. And tell me if you need my help with it. Or anything."

Sam swallowed, picking up on something that may or may not have actually been implied there. He was dismayed by the warm little thrill of excitement in his stomach as he said, "Okay." He'd been unconsciously watching Dean out of the corner of one eye, but now he forced himself to look only at the dry Nevada landscape as it swept past. If he was gonna do this - stay with Dean until they found their dad - he really needed to get a handle on himself.

He tried to think about Jess, or his other friends back in California, but his mind kept going back to when he was in fifth grade and completely obsessed with anything and everything Tolkien. He remembered being snuggled against Dean's chest, his brother, at fourteen, nearly twice his size. That was how they spent their afternoons when they came home from school, for most of that semester, which was how long they stayed at that K-12 school in Minnesota. Dean sprawled back against a pile of pillows, watching TV with the volume turned down low so as not to bother Sam, him nestled as close to him as he could get with his freckly, leanly-muscled arms loose around him, reading. Every once in awhile, Dean would nuzzle affectionately into his hair. His lips and breath were warm against his scalp as he murmured, _Good book?_

Sam, deep in _The Fellowship of the Ring,_ could only nod.

Back in the present, Sam closed his eyes so tightly that the muscles of his forehead actually started to ache. He breathed out a silent curse, pissed at himself. Not for remembering - though, admittedly, that wasn't something he could allow himself to do. But for _missing _what he remembered. He wanted Dean to hold him again, because the only place he'd ever felt safe was in his arms. He wanted that casual, all-encompassing devotion back. He wanted to be able to spend hours pressed back-to-chest with his brother without feeling guilty or disgusted.

He missed what their relationship used to be, before their dad had seen them together. Not the incestuous sex - that, at least, still made his skin crawl with the pure wrongness of it - but the comfort. The affection, and the love. He missed it so much it hurt.

_I don't give a damn how you feel about him, Sam._ His father's voice broke into his head suddenly, trembling with anger and barbed with pure revulsion, and he winced. It must've been slight, because Dean didn't move or make a sound. _Shut up, and listen to me. No, Sammy, _listen to me. _He is your _brother. _You've been sleeping with your brother. Your _feelings _don't matter - it's sick, it's wrong, it goes against nature, and you're gonna stop it right this second. Understand?_

Sam exhaled forcefully as the voice faded, massing his forehead. A headache was starting to take root there.

_Okay. Okay..._

With a swipe of his mental hand, he cleared the missing out of his mind and his heart, locking it up with the rest of the feelings he'd abandoned at nineteen. Anything that was left got converted into longing for Jess, their apartment, the Stanford campus. Everything normal and not Dean.

But when Dean took one hand off the wheel and rested his arm on the center console, so it just barely, accidentally, brushed against Sam's, he didn't yell at him for it. Or resent the warmth that would pulse up from that tiny point of contact for hours to come until Dean moved again.

* * *

Three Days Later - Late September, 2005

* * *

"Rise and shine, Sammy - uh, Sam, sorry 'bout that - I have breakfast."

The sound of a box - probably full of doughnuts - and then a carton - probably holding two disposable cups of coffee - hitting the minuscule table in their motel room made Sam blearily open his eyes. He was on his stomach, the thin covers rumpled around him, his legs spread and the lower half of his face buried in a pillow on top of his folded arms. The position sent a pang of anxiety through him, because he was in such a suggestive pose and it made him so vulnerable, but it was gone just as quickly as it'd come. He pushed himself up with a groan, raising one hand to swipe at the crud in the corners of his eyes.

"I'm starting to get really sick of gas station food," he muttered, settling himself down on the edge of the bed and casting a sleepy glare at the table.

"Well, if you think of something cheaper, tell me, and we can switch to that." Dean shrugged and flipped open the box, pulling a glazed doughnut out. So. He'd been right. "But until then - " He took a huge bite, managing to cram almost all of the doughnut into his mouth on his first try, then looked over at Sm and continued with a full mouth. "This is the stuff you were raised on, and you were just fine with it for twenty years."

Sam gave him an unimpressed look, running a hand through his sleep-mussed hair. "I think I"m getting even sicker of your manners."

Dean grinned at him, making sure as much half-chewed doughnut as possible was visible.

"You're disgusting," Sam said, rolling his eyes as he hauled himself to his feet. He reached for the pair of jeans he'd left on the floor next to his bed last night, figuring that, since he'd only worn them for a couple days in a row so far, they were still okay. Amazing how fast he got back into the rhythm of living out of a car.

"Well, excuse me, Miss Samantha."

"I don't suppose you stumbled upon any breakthroughs while you were out?" he asked, changing the subject as he fished a clean pair of boxers and his last fresh T-shirt out of his backpack. He looked up just in time to see Dean scowl and reach for one of the insulated coffee cups.

"Well, that would've been helpful, but no," he growled, sipping at it with a grimace. It must be even worse that usual. "How 'bout that girl you met at the supermarket? The one whose little sister got chewed up by whatever it is we're hunting here. She call you while you were still in dreamland?"

Sam leaned over to scoop his phone off the flimsy table between his and Dean's beds and pressed a button to wake it up, then sighed when the default display came up. No missed calls, no messages. "No. She must not've remembered anything besides what she already told me."

"Awesome." Dean dropped into one of the folding chairs that their motel - which called itself the Maverick Inn - had set out around the table. In what Sam had sarcastically termed one of the classiest displays he'd ever seen. Taking another swig of his coffee, Dean raised an eyebrow as Sam draped today's clothes over his arm and headed for the bathroom. "Don't you wanna eat before you shower?" He tapped the lid of the remaining cup. "Your coffee'll get cold."

"I can still drink it like that," Sam said with a shrug, stepping onto the cheap yellow linoleum with his bare feet. As he closed and locked the door, he heard Dean mutter "Weird," and couldn't hold back an easy smile.

Stripping off the T-shirt he'd spent the night in, he barely spared a glance for his lanky, narrowly-muscled frame in the mirror as he walked over to the small shower stall. Twisting the red and blue knobs with one hand, he wriggled out of his sweatpants and boxers with the help of the other. It was too hot to sleep in sweats, but he couldn't bring himself to comfortably wear just a pair of boxers. Or even boxers and a T-shirt. He needed his legs covered, which Dean had somehow failed to tease him about, even though he knew he'd noticed. Maybe he knew that part of him, still, would only be completely at ease if he were sleeping in his own room.

This new hunt of theirs, only their second as partners, weren't going as well as they'd hoped. Dean, especially, had been pretty optimistic when they rolled into Snyder about two days ago, because it had been their dad who sent them here. They weren't following a hunch or a rumor they'd found themselves, praying for the best as they tried to figure out just what it was they were supposed to do. Their father had been here, and decided that they needed to come. So it should've been easy.

But, so far, they were pretty much exactly where they'd been two days ago. Sam stepped under the spray from the shower head, wincing and gritting his teeth when he realized that it was just a little too cold - and he'd already turned the hot water on as far as it would go. Great. He shivered a little, tipping his head back and closing his eyes, but he was still focused on the hunt. They'd impersonated FBI agents (his fake badge had the same dorky picture, from when he was nineteen, as the federal marshal badge) and bluffed their way into the morgue and the crime scenes, but they hadn't found anything new. They'd talked to the cops and the civilians who'd found and processed the bodies, but, other than being obviously traumatized, there hadn't been anything interesting about them.

They had no idea what it was, much to Dean's frustration and Sam's confusion. It wasn't a werewolf - the lunar cycle was off, and most of the corpses still had their hearts. Just not their intestines. It wasn't a ghost - a massively-powerful poltergeist might be able to muster the strength to do something like this once, in its place of haunting, but not as often or as widely spread as this had been. It wasn't a witch - magical rituals tended to be nasty, yeah, but not quite as public as this thing was.

"Maybe it's just a normal, human serial killer," Sam had suggested yesterday. "Y'know, it doesn't always have to be a monster."

"Too many things that don't match up," Dean muttered, taking a swig from the flask he'd stuffed into the inside pocket of his rented "FBI" suit jacket. "Whatever tore these people up was stronger than any normal vanilla human being, and, if it _was _a serial killer, the security cameras would've caught something. But they didn't." He looked over at Sam. "Plus. Dad sent us here. Don't you think he would've been able to tell if it wasn't our kinda thing?"

Things had seemed a little more promising late yesterday afternoon, when Sam, at the local, family-owned supermarket to grab a couple boxes of gauze pads (his head wound, though finally closing, had taken up a lock) and restock the makeshift first-aid kit, had run into Robbi Jones. She was a tiny, nervous woman in her early twenties, and her younger sister Rachel had been one of the latest victims. She'd mentioned hearing odd noises around the house they'd shared several days before her sister disappeared and then showed back up in pieces, which had initially piqued Sam's interest...but it hadn't panned out.

So he was washing his hair now, getting ready for another day of wandering aimlessly around town before calling Jess in the evening, because he was keeping his promise to her. And the door was locked out of force of habit, but he wasn't uncomfortable in the slightest with Dean in the next room.

That was why, even though they were basically beating their heads against a brick wall with this case, Sam was still optimistic. Because things were going so well with Dean. There was no touching that wasn't purely accidental, and even that was over fast with no reaction from either of them. There were no innuendos. When his childhood nickname popped up, his brother glossed over it effortlessly. Sam hadn't pissed him off since shoving him in Lake City,and Dean hadn't done anything at all to make him angry. They had fallen into a rhythm of working and living together that was smoother than anything Sam could've hoped for. Dean completely accepted the hands-off, blatantly non-sexual business relationship he wanted. They were partners and nothing more. Not even brothers, really.

Sam couldn't help but be happy. And maybe waves of crippling sadness hit him right when he was falling asleep, and pangs of longing and regret kept sounding in his heart all day as he worked beside Dean, but he knew how to get rid of those. For awhile.

Clean, he turned off the not-quite-hot-enough water and stepped out, blinking droplets of water out of his eyes as he reached for one of the worn-out brown towels on the rack. Once his skin was dry and his hair was little more than damp - the shaggy stuff on his hair drying into unruly waves, the wispy patch on his pectorals settling into its natural pattern, the neat mat of pubic hair above his cock returning to its usual fluffy curls - he dressed himself and walked barefoot out of the bathroom. Two doughnuts on a rough brown-paper napkin and the second cup of coffee were waiting for him, as well as Dean, holding the cell phone he used to stay in contact with the local law enforcement they ran into in the course of working. He waggled it when Sam looked at him, and raised both eyebrows.

"The police chief just called me," he said. "Or I guess he called Agent Waters, but whatever. Apparently, we got another vic."

Sam sighed. "Great."

"Get your suit on," Dean told him, nodding to the larger of the two rented business suits thrown over the backs of the other folding chairs. "I'll be waiting for you. You can eat in the car."

Coming out of the room several minutes later, with the coffee in his hand and one of the doughnuts held in his teeth, Sam maneuvered himself into the passenger seat of the Impala. He briefed Dean on what, exactly the police chief had said about this newest corpse on the way to the crime scene, which was in a playground on the other side of town. According to Dean, he hadn't said much beyond that it was pretty much exactly the same as all the others. A young woman, identified as a local named Nora Steele, with one arm and both legs found several yards away from the rest of her and her abdominal organs eaten by what looked like a rabid animal. She had no connection to the other victims, and, as Sam would later find out, absolutely nothing weird or criminal about her at all.

Just as the chief had said, there was nothing new, but they spent pretty much the entire day at the scene anyway. Just in case. They talked to everyone they saw, examined the body, and searched the area multiple times, hoping to find something that they hadn't seen before. Which didn't happen, but, as frustrating as that was, doing something still felt better than just sitting on their asses back at the motel room.

While examining a loop of chewed-on intestine, Dean stood, leaving Sam crouching. His knuckles barely brushed against his freshly-shaved cheek as he turned away to go look at something else. Sam swallowed, forcibly crushing a sudden urge to grab that hand and press it against his face, so he could revel in the warmth and the contact. He stared, hard, at the guts in front of him, to try and get rid of the flutter of arousal that Dean's brief touch had planted in his crotch.

Some days, he thought these things were getting worse. Maybe it came from being in such close proximity to him for so long.

"Dinner." Dean unceremoniously shoved a burger at him around eight p.m., after walking across the street to a small restaurant that was little more than a stand. The body was gone, the area was cleaned up, but a few cops who apparently had nothing better to do were still hanging around the cordoned-off crime scene. Sam had been quietly talking to one of them about what he thought of the whole situation.

"Thanks." He unwrapped the parchment paper around the warm burger, and examined it in the dim light. "Veggie?"

"Well, you bitched at me on Tuesday, when I gave you a normal one," Dean shrugged, leaning against the nearby Impala and unwrapping his own dinner. From the scent, it was a bacon cheeseburger. "Even though you used to like those."

"I _like _the idea of not having a heart attack before I'm thirty," Sam replied. Dean smirked at him, but it was tired, and he didn't answer. The dead ends they kept hitting must be even harder on him than Sam had thought, if he didn't even have the heart for banter right now.

He thought he knew why. This was a hunt that their father had given to them, and Dean wanted to get it over with fast and neat, even though it wasn't uncommon for a hunt to drag on for weeks. He wanted to impress him with his skill. The man was his idol, after all. Which Sam thought was pathetic and more than a little sad, seeing as their dad pretty much despised Dean but he had no clue.

He was about to give him a sympathetic look and tell him that they would, without a doubt, find something, when his phone rang.

Sam set his untouched veggie burger down on the roof of the Impala (Dean eyed him disapprovingly, probably wary about him getting grease on the paint) and dug his phone out of the pocket of his slacks. "Hello?"

"Agent Mason?" Robbi Jones's voice was barely even a whisper in his ear.

"Robbi." His voice came out professional and concerned without him even thinking about it. He felt a thrill of...not exactly excitement, that she'd called him, because hunting wasn't really an undying passion of his. But it was close. "How are you doing? Did you...remember something new?"

"No...no." He could barely make out what she was saying. She'd been quiet when he talked to her before, but not like this. "It's just...the noises I heard before I lost Rachel..." She paused, and he heard a sniffle. His first instinct was to say something that would comfort her, but he needed to hear what she had to tell him first. "I'm hearing them again. Right outside the house."

Sam automatically straightened, feeling his face settle into a determined mask. "Okay, Robbi. I'm gonna need you to lock your doors and windows, and stay inside no matter what you hear. Understand? My partner and I'll be there as soon as possible. Don't worry."

Robbi whispered out an affirmation and something about how grateful she was, but Sam wasn't listening. As soon as she was quiet again, he snapped his phone shut and turned to face Dean, who was watching him with his arms folded and his burger, forgotten, sitting on top of the Impala next to Sam's.

"That was Robbi - " he started.

"Who?"

"The girl I met at the supermarket." He shook his head impatiently. "She told me that she'd heard stuff a couple nights before whatever this thing is went after her younger sister - "

"Right," Dean said, nodding. "Scratching and hisses. Pretty vague."

"Yeah, but probably dangerous," Sam responded. "And she's hearing them again."

"All right, let's go." Dean cleared their basically-untouched dinner off the car, giving his burger one last longing glance before tossing it into a nearby trash can. "You know where she lives?"

"Yeah. She gave me her phone number and her address." Sam pulled open the door on the passenger side. "She sounded really scared. We should hurry."

"Damn straight," Dean agreed with a grin. "This hunt is finally picking up."

* * *

After assuring Robbi (through the door - she'd taken Sam's instructions as literally as possible) that they had arrived and were going to find and dispose of whatever was making the noises she'd been hearing, Sam let Dean lead the way off her tiny porch and around the property. The house itself was pretty small, which was probably to be expected from two women both living on college budgets, but the yard was massive. And it was a jungle.

A grief-stricken Robbi had blurted out, during their first meeting, that Rachel had had a bit of a green thumb. Seeing what had to be her handiwork spread out in front of him, Sam couldn't help but think that that was sorta like saying Hannibal Lecter was a little disturbed. The yard was a maze of shrubs and exotic trees and artfully-shaped flowerbeds, all in full bloom even though it was technically fall. They'd probably once been impeccable, but Rachel Jones had been dead for a little over a week and a half, and things were starting to overgrow and wilt. A cloying floral scent completely filled the air. They wouldn't be able to smell ozone or sulfur or rotting flesh or anything else that might give them a clue.

"Awesome," Dean said grimly, his hand brushing unconsciously over several of the many knives he'd strapped to his belt. "I've always wanted to hunt monsters in Oz...while wearing a suit. Great."

"What's that?" Sam asked, ignoring him. It was starting to get pretty dark, so he'd grabbed a flashlight out of the arsenal in the trunk in addition to all his other weaponry (a shotgun full of salt, steel knives, a handgun with regular rounds, a flask of holy water, purifying charms from a dozen different pagan religions...he'd tried to cover all the bases). Now, he flicked it on and walked into the garden, looking at something glistening and red on the ground. "Oh...ew."

"Piece of intestine," Dean noted, coming up behind him to stand - very carefully, he noticed - just fa enough away to keep him comfortable. "Think it's from the latest corpse? That Nora girl?"

"Either her, or another victim we don't know about yet," Sam said. "It looks pretty fresh. And..." He moved his flashlight a little, picking out a slick, patchy trail of blood on the thick grass. Some part of his mind wondered just how much water it took to keep plants this healthy during the Texas summers. "There's your yellow-brick road."

"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto," was Dean's reply. "Let's go." He brushed past him, taking care not to actually touch him, and started following the blood trail.

For a second, Sam bristled, wondering just what Dean had meant by calling him "Toto," then realized he probably hadn't meant a damn thing and followed him. For awhile, there was only his flashlight beam picking out the blood trail as it led them through the overgrown garden. Until it mysteriously disappeared.

"Shit..." Sam looked around, suddenly becoming aware of a faint scratching sound now that his attention was no longer entirely taken up with the blood. "Hey. D'you hear that?"

"Yep." Dean pulled his handgun out of the waistband of his slacks, where he'd been keeping it, and cocked it. He turned to face Sam, who was doing the same with his own gun. "See anything?"

He swept his flashlight in a cursory circle before shaking his head. "No." A branch creaked above him in the tree he was standing under, and a few pale, sweet-smelling flowers drifted down onto his head. Dean's gaze drifted upwards as he brushed them off.

"Sam - " he said suddenly, his voice tight and warning, and Sam looked up just in time to see huge eyes and claws and fangs drop towards him.

He couldn't help but scream when talons raked down his back and across his shoulders, splitting his flesh even through the suit. Fangs like daggers sank into the meat of his chest as whatever it was bit him - viciously. He dropped to his knees, originally planning on rolling and trying to crush it until it let go of him, but the white-hot agony of deep wounds clouded his thoughts. He screamed again as the claws twisted against the muscle of his lower back, but, this time, it was a name.

_"Dean!"_

_Help me help me help me big brother please help me oh God it hurts so bad help me I need you -_

A gunshot that was practically right next to his ear all but deafened him, and he grunted in shock, but then claws and teeth wrenched out of him and something howled in agony. The weight of the thing that'd attacked him was suddenly gone, and he swayed on his knees, dizzy from pain and shock and loss of blood. His hears were ringing, but he could still make out his brother exclaiming, "What the hell was _that?!"_

"Dean," Sam murmured, trying to get to his feet, but he failed and almost fell over. He felt strong hands on him, steadying him and being extremely careful of his wounds as Dean dropped into a crouch.

"Sorry, sorry, I know I'm touching you, but I gotta," he muttered under his breath. Sam groaned in agony, squeezing his eyes shut and unintentionally blocking out Dean's intense, concerned face. His green eyes were brilliant. "No, shh, Sammy, it's gonna be okay, I gotcha...oh, shit, looks like that thing bit you. Okay. C'mon."

Sam felt himself pulled up and supported with immense gentleness, hands pressed hard to the worst-bleeding of his wounds. And, constantly, Dean was right next to him, murmuring, "I got you, Sammy. I'm gonna fix you..."

* * *

Sam remembered being hauled past a terrified Robbi, who'd come rushing out when she heard a gunshot - so maybe she hadn't followed his instructions quite as well as he'd thought. Dean waved off her fluttering attempts to help and deflected her questions ("Pretty sure it was some sort of animal. Maybe a raccoon - Jesus, _move it,_ can't you see he's bleeding out here?!"). On the rapid, extremely-illegal drive back to the motel, during which Dean broke pretty much every traffic law the U.S. had, he sat stiffly in the passenger seat and panted shallowly, each of his hands holding a rag from the trunk to the deepest gashes on his chest and shoulder. Dean, driving with one hand, was using the other to keep a rag pressed to a third wound. What Sam could see of his facial expression frightened him a little.

"The hospital," he managed to gasp out.

"Not going to the Goddamn hospital," Dean muttered, icy glare fixed out the windshield. Sam groaned, and not entirely out of pain. Some of those claws had sliced pretty deep into him, and he wouldn't be surprised to find out he had ruptured organs. You couldn't treat those with a fifth of whiskey and dental floss.

"Dean - "

"No, Sam, I'm not taking you to the hospital!" He shot him a glance, his expression terrified and tense. "We don't have insurance, we don't have any real IDs, and something _bit _you and we don't even know what it was!" Breathing hard and working his lower lip between his teeth, he focused on the road again and continued in a quieter voice. "'Sides. I don't...I'm not gonna trust you to someone else. Not unless I absolutely have to."

Seeing the look that Sam was giving him, he sighed deeply, and took his hand off the wheel for just a second in order to rub it over his face.

"I'm sorry. Shouldn't've said that," he said quietly. Sam wanted to tell him he didn't need to apologize, he'd misinterpreted his expression, but he couldn't quiet bring himself to speak.

After parking the car and dragging him into the motel room, Dean had him swallow about five fairly-powerful painkillers with a glass of metallic-tasting tap water. Then, just to be on the safe side, he gave him a shot of whiskey. Sam wasn't actually sure you were supposed to mix those two things, but he embraced anything that would help the unbearable agony he was feeling right now. God, he'd forgotten how much it hurt to be clawed up.

Dean washed his wounds as gently as he could, dabbing away the welling blood to make sure there was no damage he couldn't fix. Sam sat on the edge of one of the folding chairs, shirtless ("Guess we're gonna lost the deposit on this, huh?" Dean joked as he pulled off his jacket, shirt, and tie, all bloody and torn) and groggy. So he could have access to both the front and back of him. Normally, Dean's hands on his bare skin would have been occasion for screaming and an exchange of blows, and he was still uncomfortable, but he let him sew him up. He had no other choice. And it was almost...comforting, being taken care of like this by someone he'd literally known his entire life. Sam blinked, sleepily, and found himself disappointed when Dean, done patching up his back and shoulders, moved on to his chest - and didn't touch anything at all besides the skin directly around the holes left by the monster's fangs. Not his nipples, not his lower ribs, not the thin trail of dark pubic hair that ran down from his belly button, on his flat stomach.

He was being careful. He was respecting him, honoring his wishes. Sam was hurt, heavily drugged, and, probably, drunk, and Dean was going out of his way not to take advantage of him.

He whimpered a little bit.

"I'm sorry," Dean soothed, misunderstanding. "Doing my best not to hurt you any more than you are already here, but you're pretty torn up."

"No...no. Dean..." Sam looked up at him, blinking back tears of regret and self-loathing, all his inhibitions completely stripped away by the stuff coursing through his veins. He didn't want sex - his need was too childish for that, and some basic part of him understood that his body was too damaged right now. Even if he couldn't feel the pain. He wanted love. He wanted comfort. He wanted to make Dean understand. So he reached to cup his face with one hand, but Dean moved back from him, expression weary.

"I've just gotta put bandages on you, and then I'll stop touching you, okay?" he said, raising his hands. "Don't flip out on me yet. I know how you hate me - " Sam winced at that. He didn't hate him. He'd never hated him. How could he think that? " - so, if you want me to, I can sleep out in the Impala tonight. If this whole thing has made you too uncomfortable."

"No," Sam murmured, as Dean gently rubbed antiseptic ointment over his stitches, then wrapped his torso in gauze.

"C'mon, let's get you into bed," Dean said softly, helping him to his feet. "I'm not gonna try anything, I promise. I'd let you do it yourself if I thought you could walk without falling over...maybe the whiskey was a bad idea, huh?."

"Dean," Sam tried again, as Dean settled him on his bed and crouched to get his shoes off. He glanced up at him, expressionless.

"I told you, I'll be gone in a minute," he said flatly.

"No..." Sam noticed that his tongue wasn't working too well. Maybe the whiskey really had been a bad idea.

"That big vocabulary kinda deserts you when you're drugged, huh?" He straightened up. "Okay, I'm...gonna..."

He trailed off, because Sam had leaned forward and wrapped his arms tightly around his waist, even though it pulled on his stitches hard enough to make a little bit of pain flicker through the fog of drugs and alcohol. His head rested against Dean's solar plexus, and he closed his eyes. Even though he was still wearing his shirt and slacks (both bloodstained), he could feel his warmth. And make out his scent. No leather, because he hadn't worn his jacket in days, but the solid, masculine smell of seat that came from actual work was still there, and so was that inexplicable trace of almost-vanilla.

"Sam," Dean said quietly, voice just a little husky. "What're you doing?"

"Stay," he whispered into the firm muscles of his brother's stomach. "Please."

There was a very, very long pause. Then, "You told me you didn't want this."

Sam looked up at him, and made a monumental effort to focus, before slowly enunciating, "I need you to stay with me."

"Okay, you're obviously not thinking straight right now - "

"Dean." Sam closed his eyes again and put his head back against Dean's stomach. He hadn't moved an inch. Terrified that he might break the contact, he let out a ragged sob of an exhale. _"Please."_

They stayed in that position for a long, long time, neither saying or doing anything, until, finally, Dean pushed Sam's arms off of him. He did it with incredible tenderness, but Sam's heart sank anyway. Until he sat down next to him, being careful not to touch him, and softly asked, "So. What do you want me to do?"

In answer, Sam leaned against him, tucking his head onto his shoulder and curling up against his broad chest. He was more comfortable than even he and Jess's bed, which they'd payed way too much for. He slowly pulled his legs up, like he was moving through water, as Dean let out a barely-audible, "Oh."

He turned, to put them into a more comfortable position, then swung his own legs up and lay back against the pillows. As Sam rested against him, legs curled up next to his and torso positioned completely on his chest, he put his arms around him. Awkwardly, at first. Like he didn't quiet remember what he was doing. But it got better, until he was holding him in a warm embrace that had the promise of steely strength behind it. The message was clear and automatically comforting. He was being gentle with him, because he was hurt and he loved him, but he was more than capable of protecting him if he needed to.

Sam gripped Dean's shoulder and pulled himself closer. He'd been hurt - really, _really _hurt - and rendered helpless for the first time in years, and that'd shaken him. The booze and pills hadn't done anything to help him hide his vulnerability. But, right now, he was glad.

"You just wanted to feel safe, huh?" Dean whispered to him. "Sammy...I'm so sorry you got hurt, I should've - "

"'M fine now," Sam murmured into his chest. He squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. Or, at least, he thought he did. He was pretty close to passing out. "Feel safe."

"Yeah, I can keep you safe now, don't worry." Dean wasn't doing anything but holding him. He wished he'd rub his back or stroke his hair, or kiss him, but he tried to be happy with this. "You'll be safe tonight. I promise you, Sam, you're safe. I'm here."


	11. Chapter 11

**You're all going to hate me for this chapter.**

**It gets better in the next one, promise.**

* * *

For as long as Dean could remember, he'd woken up before Sam. It was a habit that had been ingrained in him almost twenty-two years ago, when Sam was six months old and needed to be fed, changed, and comforted every few hours - and Dad was usually passed out drunk, self-medicating for the loss of his wife. As they got older, it'd been useful because he could have breakfast ready for his little brother when he woke up, so mornings in a cheap motel room out in God's Nowhere Land were just a little better. Or he could pull him out of whatever obscure corner of the bed he'd wriggled into during the night and cover him with kisses and warm touches, if it wasn't a school day. It was fun to hear his little growls of protest because he wanted to keep sleeping.

But, if he stayed in his arms all night, snuggled against his chest like it was his favorite place in the world...then waking up before Sam was a real treat. Dean hadn't expected that to ever happen again, after the way Sam had treated him when he showed up in his apartment. And the distance he'd forced between them as they worked to find Dad, even though they were at least treating each other civilly now instead of snapping and shoving. So, when he woke up holding someone warm and solid, his sleep-fuzzed brain didn't immediately remember - or believe - that it was Sam.

_Oh, shit, I must've fallen asleep,_ he thought, heart sinking. He assumed he'd gone home with someone he met at a bar. He didn't actually remember going to a bar last night, but that didn't mean much. What mattered was that he'd bedded this person and then stayed the night, which he never allowed himself to do. It conveyed the wrong message. _She must think - _ No, not a woman, the chest pressed to his was flat and angular. - he _must think I like him. Damn it, this is gonna be awkward...gonna have to explain I've got somebody else I'm just waiting for...God, I hate talking to one-night stands about Sammy..._

The guy in his arms shifted a little, and suddenly whimpered in pain. Dean's breath caught in his throat as the voice registered.

_I...no. Gotta be dreaming. Right?_

But last night was coming back to him through a haze of exhaustion, stress, denial, and excitement. He held back those memories, making sure. He smelled blood, hydrogen peroxide, antiseptic ointment...and Sam, such a warm, clean, wholly familiar scent. The shape was right, his torso bare and ridged with lean muscle, and Dean felt bandages and hot, smooth skin when he moved his fingers a little. There was a nest of soft hair resting against his shoulder and tickling his neck.

He remembered the absolute terror of cleaning and closing up Sam's wounds last night, pulling each one open to dab the blood and grit out and expecting a torn, pulsating organ to spurt gore at him in a death sentence for his younger brother. He remembered hating himself for touching Sam so intimately when he obviously didn't want it, and his lack of arousal even though Sam's bare skin was under his hands. He was just too scared to be horny, too concerned about his pain. And that bite. The bite was a problem.

And he remembered Sam hugging him. Begging him to stay. Immediately nestling into his chest and and his embrace, making tiny sounds of contentment and comfort. Oh, God, he'd loved him so much right then, with a painful intensity he hadn't felt for years, and he'd wanted to protect him from everything that might hurt him.

Yeah, Sam'd been out of it when he practically begged to be held. But that wasn't a big deal. No matter how hopped up on pain pills he'd been, he still loved Dean, and he still automatically turned to him when he was scared and hurting. Eyes still closed and head resting on a pillow, Dean couldn't keep a disbelieving, ecstatic smile from spreading across his face. Sam had let him sleep in the same bed with him, and he'd let him touch him - _asked _him to touch him - and he'd spent the entire night safe in his arms without moving once. Every little gesture and vocal tic that he'd latched onto before meant nothing now, because this was indisputable proof that there was still so much between them worth salvaging.

Sam still loved him. He couldn't get over that.

With a long, happy sigh, Dean tipped his head back a little and pulled Sam just the tiniest bit closer to him, being incredibly careful of his stitches. The very last thing he wanted to do was hurt him. He could remember spending a million mornings like this, staying still and just enjoying every single sensation, so he didn't wake up Sam before he was ready. Even as Dean stopped growing and Sam matched, then surpassed him in size, they had slept in this position. It was familiar, it felt good...it was what they automatically fell into at the end of the day. Dean hadn't even realized how much he'd missed it until he felt Sam's weight pressed against him again, filling up a space he hadn't even known was so painfully empty. All the pain and abandonment and uncertainty of the last two years (and, especially, the last week) was totally worth what he was feeling right now.

His fingertips brushing against the bandages on Sam's back as he moved one of his hands in an unconscious, soothing motion, Dean wondered what this meant. Did he have him back now, completely, as a brother and a best friend and a lover? Or was this just the very beginning of what they needed to do to rebuild their relationship?

Either way, he was all for it. Just so long as he got to keep touching and holding.

Sam stirred, his movements stronger now, and groaned in pain. Realizing he was waking up, Dean opened his eyes and raised his head. A tangle of dark hair greeted him, and one bandaged shoulder (hunched inward, reminding him of a broken wing), and his own arms, holding this fragile bundle of tan skin and clever mind and aching stitches to his chest.

"Hey, c'mon, now, take it slow," he murmured to him. "It's gonna hurt like a son of a bitch today, and you gotta get used to it. Don't make it worse."

Sam's hand was on his shoulder, gripping him through the thin white button-down he hadn't had the time to take off last night. It moved slightly now, feeling. With one side of his face pressed to Dean's chest and other shoulder, he murmured out a question that might've been his name.

"Yeah...good morning," Dean said softly, patting the side of his ribcage. There wasn't anything there that would hurt. He thought about kissing the top of his head, but that might not be okay yet. "How'd you sleep?"

_Because I slept great, with you right here, _he thought, smiling down at him. _I wanna tell you that. I want you to know what you mean to me._

"Fine."

Dean paused, his smile fading. It'd only been one word, but it's been enough for him to tell that something was wrong. Sam's voice was so...expressionless, and it shouldn't be. Not after what'd happened, and not with what he obviously felt.

_Oh, God, _please, _not this again. I can't go back to this._

"You...hurting, or something?" he asked uncertainly, as his heart sank and his stomach twisted. He was praying that Sam's lack of emotion came from something other than the fact that they'd spent the night so close. Dammit, he'd _wanted_ this, hadn't he? "Here. Just go real slow, take all the time you need, and we can get you breakfast and some pills. I'll help you if you need it."

Sam's chest slowly expanded and contracted as he breathed, a tiny wince occasionally shuddering through him as he stretched one of his wounds too far. He didn't say anything for a little bit, and Dean swallowed fear and anxiety. Slowly, the hand on his shoulder opened, and moved away. He closed his eyes as the cool air of the motel room hit him through his shirt.

_Don't do this, Sammy..._

"Dean." Again, his voice was totally blank, and quiet. "Let go of me. Please."

_Don't do this to me._

His first instinct was to just hold on, because he hadn't done anything wrong and he hadn't had Sam this close to him in years - he wanted to enjoy it for a little longer. But he couldn't do that, because he'd be forcing him into something he didn't want. The thought made him sick. So he opened his arms, and moved away from Sam as he twisted and turned and carefully maneuvered himself into a sitting position. Every tiny sound of pain he made was like a blow to Dean, and he wanted so badly to help, so he could make it easier. The morning after a beating was always hellish in a way few people could understand. But he kept his hands to himself, sitting up and resting his forearms on his bent knees as he watched Sam. He was sitting on the opposite edge of his bed, torso held stiffly, his hands bearing some of his weight.

_Please._

"You got bit," he spoke up, just wanting to fill the silence. What he actually wanted to do was ask him just what the hell was wrong with him, and what he'd done to deserve this. But that might push him further away. "D'you...feel any different this morning? Like you're turning into a monster?"

Sam shook his head, but didn't say anything. Then he shivered, just a little bit. Dean, still pretty much fully clothed, wasn't feeling the chill of the early morning, but Sam's torso was bare. He sighed, scooting over until he could hook his legs over the edge of the bed and sit beside him.

"You're cold," he murmured. "Sam..." He hesitated, then shook his head and decided to just go for it. He'd been dealing with Sam brushing him off and keeping them apart for almost a week now - over two years, actually, if you counted his time at Stanford - and he was sick of it. Especially now that they'd spent the night together, at Sam's urging. Things were different now, and he was damn well going to act according to that. "Whatever morning-after regrets you're having right now, get rid of 'em. It's not worth it, we can't afford it - and I don't even know why you'd _have _morning-after regrets, seeing as we didn't do anything. We just slept." Dean studied Sam's face, which was impassive, hazel eyes aimed down at the floor. "So...let me warm you up, okay? We'll go real slow with this. I didn't do anything last night that I thought you might be uncomfortable with, and that's not gonna change." Taking a chance, he reached up and used the very tips of his fingers to stroke the ruffles of dark hair that fell onto Sam's neck. "You can trust me."

"Dean, I..." He hesitated, squeezing his eyes shut. His mouth worked as he chewed on the inside of his lip. "Okay. Don't...don't touch me." He reached up, grabbed his wrist, and guided his hand away, and Dean felt the muscles in his face twitch involuntarily. Even though the movement was so reluctant on Sam's part

"Sammy - "

"Don't call me that, either." He turned away, refusing to look at him even as he opened his eyes. "It's just 'Sam' - and last night didn't mean what you obviously think it meant."

"Excuse me?" Dean asked, feeling like he'd just been kicked in the stomach.

"Look. Obviously, I was pretty out of it, and I was hurt, and I was scared," Sam started. "You...comforted me, I guess, and...that was okay. You were...being a good brother." He rubbed a hand over his face. "But we're just partners."

"Sam - " Dean tried, disbelief evident in his voice.

"I told you that I didn't want anything else," Sam quietly interrupted him. "So...we can't ever do anything like this again if we're gonna keep working together. Last night never should've happened - and, yeah, I know it was my fault, but I wasn't thinking straight. You think this was the start of something, but...it wasn't. And I think we should just try and forget about it."

_"'Forget about it'?"_ Dean asked incredulously. "How the hell can you expect me to - "

"We are brothers," Sam said forcefully. "We're related. We can't do this...and I - I don't want to."

Dean stayed silent for a little bit, his heart hammering in his chest and anger and pain twisting bitterly in his stomach. He didn't know how to fix this, or what to say - because, yeah, he'd thought this was the start of something. He'd made himself vulnerable, and now Sam was taking advantage of that, even if he didn't realize it.

_I wish I didn't love you like I do, so I could hurt you back._

But he could manage, "So. You're really gonna do this. You're gonna act like nothing happened."

"Don't get pissed at me," Sam said, and it sounded like he was begging. "Look. I'm not leaving, I'm not yelling...you fixed me up and then you didn't take advantage of me, and I understand that. I'm _grateful _for that. But...no. I'm not gonna be your - " His upper lip twitched a little, like he was fighting with himself about what he was going to say. " - lover again. I have a girlfriend, Dean. I wouldn't want this even if we weren't related."

"Yeah, I know," Dean replied, staring fiercely down at his boots and digging his fingers into the mattress. This _hurt. _Even worse than when Sam had left for Stanford, and when he'd hit him. Last night, he'd gotten back the one thing he loved and cared about more than anything else, practically a missing piece of his heart...his Sammy. And now that sense of perfect wholeness was being taken away again, leaving him raw and empty. But he didn't know how to say that so Sam would understand.

"I'm gonna...ow...shower, and get dressed." Sam winced as he got to his feet, still not really looking at Dean. "You can get us breakfast, and then we can go back to Robbi's house. Look around."

"Sam..." Dean tried, not sure what he was gonna say but desperate to try. He needed to salvage something. But Sam ignored him, moving stiffly to the bathroom and closing the door behind him. The lock clicked mournfully.

Dean bowed his head with a deep, shuddering sigh. Part of him desperately wanted to yell at Sam, call him out for going back on the promises he'd made last night with his gestures and his body. To touch him no matter what he said, and plant kisses on his hair and the back of his neck from behind, and pull him into quick embraces whenever he thought he needed it. But he had to force those urges down, despite his resentment of his younger brother - and himself, for being so weak. Because, again, that would be forcing something he didn't want on him. Basically rape, which Sam had already all but accused him of right after they started working together...and he didn't want to validate that.

It might make him leave, too, and Dean couldn't stand that. Having him here, even acting like he was and refusing all contact unless he was drugged, was a million times better than being separated again. He couldn't touch, this way, but he could still get his fill of hazel eyes and shaggy brown hair and a deep, deliberate voice.

But that was a pretty small comfort as Dean stared at the closed door, furious and indignant but mostly just hurt.

_I kept you safe last night,_ he thought, squeezing his eyes shut and massaging them so he wouldn't cry. Yeah, because that was exactly what he needed right now - to start bawling in a cheap motel room because his boyfriend didn't want to get back together with him. He didn't let himself think about the fact that there was so much more to it than that. _I protected you. I took care of you._

Water stuttered on in the bathroom, and Dean imagined Sam unwinding his bandages and awkwardly trying to shower without getting his stitches wet. He didn't think about his naked body, though that definitely would've been nice. He just thought about how difficult and painful his normal routine was going to be for him, on his own.

_That used to be enough._

He forced himself to his feet and wandered over to the table, where he'd left his car keys. He needed to get breakfast.

_I did what was best for you...didn't I?_

* * *

Early October, 1990

* * *

"Excited to go back to school?" Dean asked, crouched behind his brother to zip up his jacket. Sammy nodded emphatically, almost hitting him in the nose with his head.

"Uh-huh!" He was fidgeting, impatient, his small, soft body practically buzzing with energy under Dean's hands. "Can we go yet?"

"Hey, calm down. Jesus, you little bookworm..." Dean checked his jacket, his jeans, his boots, and his gloves, making sure he was properly buttoned up against the harsh Montana cold. "Okay, let's get your hat on. Your worksheet's in your backpack, right?"

"Yes!" Sammy bounced on his heels, incredibly excited by the prospect of turning in real homework for the first time. He hadn't been able to stop talking about it all weekend, and Dean had listened, knowing how grownup this made him feel. He'd never had any in kindergarten, and he'd always finished all his work in class as a first grader. He always watched, wide-eyed, as Dean made a half-assed pass at book reports and math assignments in their motel rooms, and begged to help. Most of the time, his "help" amounted to sitting in Dean's lap and listening to him swear at things he didn't understand, because they were four years apart. So the addition worksheet that his teacher had given him on a Friday was a big deal. "It's in my folder. I checked." He looked over his shoulder, as Dean stood up to reach for the woolly green hat on the nightstand between their bed and Dad's. His excitement seemed to fade, suddenly, and he just looked vulnerable. "Dean...can you check it again? On the way to school?"

"I've checked it three times. I think you're good," Dean replied, tugging the hat down over Sammy's ears and smashing the wavy curls of his hair flat in the process. "'Sides. It was right the first time. You're smart." He knelt, and brushed some hair out of Sammy's face, his own gloves making the movement clumsy. "I bet your teacher's gonna be real proud of you. When we get home, you can hop in bed, I'll make some of that instant cocoa Dad picked up the other day...and you can tell me all about it. Okay?"

"Okay." Sammy smiled at him, nervous but happy again. "You really think I did good?"

"I think you did great, Sammy. You definitely spent enough time on it. I feel like I barely saw you this weekend..." Dean automatically opened his arms when Sammy stepped forward and pressed himself against him with no warning, holding him tightly as he murmured an apology into the collar of his own, one-size-too-small jacket. "No, you don't gotta be sorry. We'll make up for it tonight." He let Sammy bury his face in the space between his neck and his shoulder, and dipped his head to breathe in the warm, comfortable little-kid scent of him. He planted a few soft kisses on the hair that curled out from underneath his hat, and the narrow strip of bare skin visible between that and his jacket, and Sammy grabbed onto him with a small sound of pleasure. "Warm enough?"

"Mm-hm." Dean leaned back against Dad's bed, pulling his little brother onto his lap and completely unable to hold back a soft chuckle as he burrowed into him again, reluctant to be separated.

"Few too many layers, though," he murmured, pushing him back a little and laying a hand against his chest. "I'm not looking forward to getting those all off, to see how beautiful you are under there."

Sammy smiled, the expression shy and full of love, and leaned back in to pepper Dean's throat with tiny kisses. He purred in approval, hugging him tightly. Almost two years since Dean's withdrawal (which he could tell Sammy still didn't understand) had reaffirmed their confidence in each other. Sammy barely left his side, but he was no longer afraid that he'd be abandoned at any moment. And Dean, able to see how happy what they did made him without hurting him at all, wasn't worried about it being wrong anymore. Obviously, he knew it wasn't right to kiss and hold and jerk off his baby brother, and that anyone who found out about it would probably freak out, but he didn't care. It worked for them.

Dean closed his eyes, comfortable and content, and let Sammy rest against him. But they flew open again in a second as he heard a car pull up and idle outside.

"Dad's here, we gotta go," he told Sammy, pushing him off his lap. "Get your backpack."

He could tell Sammy was disappointed, but they didn't really have a choice. They either hurried outside as soon as Dad showed up and he took them to school, or one of them didn't quite make it out the door in time and got left behind. No matter how big a fit the other pitched about it.

And they couldn't kiss and touch in front of Dad. Dean slung his ragged backpack onto his shoulder and hurried Sammy, with his small, battered red one, out the door of their motel room. He didn't allow it, and he was pretty sure his brother didn't understand anything about it except that Dean had told him not to, but that was good enough. Sammy didn't need to deal with the guilt or the fear that still hit him every once in awhile.

Dean pulled open the door of the Impala and scrambled in as soon as Sammy had, waving away his worksheet with a reassuring smile when he tried to get him to check it again, telling him he knew, for a fact, that it was perfect. That seemed to appease him. He really hoped that he wasn't this paranoid in the future, when he got more homework; as proud as Dean was of his little brother's academic drive, he didn't think he could take another weekend with him as nervous as he had been during this one. And he wasn't sure he could help him anymore, as he moved into higher and higher grades.

As Dad brought the car to a temporary stop right beside the entrance to their school, Dean grabbed his backpack and pushed the door open. His boots had barely hit the ground before Sammy was scrambling out right next to him. He hesitated before running off in the direction of his classroom, looking up at Dean uncertainly. Like he needed just the tiniest bit more reassurance to get him through the day. Dean felt a flood of sympathy and put a hand on his small shoulder, squeezing comfortingly; after shooting a quick glance at Dad, to make sure that he wasn't looking, he dropped to one knee and pressed a quick, tender kiss to Sammy's soft pink lips. That seemed to be enough. He let go of him, watching him run off to the grade school wing of the building, and turned towards his own classroom. In the back of his mind, he noted that his teacher - he hadn't bothered to learn her name - was standing in the doorway, eyes fixed on him and expression troubled. He didn't care.

At least, he wouldn't. Not for several hours.

* * *

Late September, 2005

* * *

Dean was numbly nursing a cup of coffee, hunched over the table, when Sam came out of the bathroom, fully dressed and with damp hair. He idly wondered how he'd gotten the clothes. Had he darted out and grabbed them while he was down at the gas station? Or did he stash an extra outfit under the sink, just in case?

"Got your bandages on okay?" he asked as Sam sat down across from him, hazel eyes skating across him like he wasn't even there. He kept his voice casual, slightly upbeat. Because he could totally pretend that it was a bright new day and nothing at all had happened last night.

"Um...yeah. Fine," Sam said quietly, staring at the cheap vinyl finish of the table as he reached for his own coffee. Just like always, Dean had dumped massive amounts of sugar and creamer and other stuff into it, to make it all sweet and frilly like he preferred. Coffee was important, and he wasn't going to screw with Sam's just because he'd figuratively ripped his heart out of his chest earlier.

"Y'know, down at the gas station this morning..." Dean began, taking another sip of coffee and carefully watching Sam. Maybe his stare was a little too intense to be considered perfectly friendly, but he didn't actually care. "I noticed the cashier was pretty cute." He shrugged. "Nice ass. So...you don't mind if I take off for a little bit tonight, do you?"

Sam stiffened. Not much, but enough that Dean caught it. He glanced up, then looked away again just as quickly, and Dean saw something flicker through his eyes before he did. Hurt. He'd hurt him.

It should've made him happy, but he just felt a little sick.

"You don't get to be all wounded when I talk about having sex with other people," he snapped before thinking, and the sick feeling got worse. "I don't owe you any loyalty."

"I'm not _wounded," _Sam snapped back, anger obviously flaring up in him for a second before it faded and he lowered his voice again. "Why would I be? There is _nothing_ going on between us, and it's better if we act like there never was...so of course you don't owe me anything."

"But we _did _have something," Dean replied, fully aware that he was playing with fire as he took another drink. "We had a whole lot of something, and pretending it never happened isn't gonna get rid of what we both felt. What we're still feeling, if last night is any indication at all."

"Dean, stop it," Sam murmured, staring down at his insulated cup.

"You can't do this," Dean argued, swallowing apprehension and anxiety and a fear of pushing him away. "You can't just make everything go away. You grabbed onto me last night and _begged_ me to hold you, to spend the night with you, and you can't make that go away."

"Stop it," Sam repeated, looking away.

"I..." Dean hesitated, before quietly saying, "No. I ain't gonna."

They sat in silence for several minutes, before Sam closed his eyes and began to speak in a soft, almost vulnerable voice.

"I don't wanna fight," he started. Dean waited, both hands wrapped around his cup. He was more than willing to hear him out. "I'm so sick of fighting with you. Things've been so much better between us than they were at first, these past couple of days, and I want to go back to that. I don't..." He hesitated. "I don't think I could handle you being angry with me again. Resenting me. And I don't want to be angry with you." He actually looked at him now, fixing him with a steady gaze. "Okay?"

"Okay," Dean agreed, because he didn't really know what else he could do. Immediately, he felt the distance between them again, and Sam broke eye contact, staying quiet until they were ready to leave.

It was something, at least. Things had changed. All he could do was hope that they would keep on doing that, until Sam was right back where he belonged.

* * *

Early October, 1990

* * *

"Dean...here's a hall pass. You need to visit the counselor."

Bent over his desk, putting minimal effort into a graphing assignment, Dean looked up at his teacher. She was leaning over him, keeping her voice quiet so none of the other students around him could hear. He scowled at the slip of blue paper that she was offering him. She was a younger woman, even younger than his dad, which set her apart from a lot of the teachers he'd had over the years. He didn't like her, even though he could tell his classmates did, with the pale brown hair that she loosely braided and her wide blue eyes and her flower-print blouses. But she didn't follow the unwritten script that he expected teachers to, when he was in their class. She didn't ignore him as soon as he made it obvious he didn't care about school. She tried to give him extra credit so he could bring his grades up, she came over to his desk to help him with his work, she attempted to involve him in the class. She was way too interested in him, and that automatically made him uncomfortable. She was an outsider. She shouldn't care about him.

"Why?" Dean demanded, leaning back in his seat and folding his arms defiantly across his chest.

"She wants to talk to you," his teacher said softly. "I asked her to."

"Why the hell would you do that?" He fidgeted, uneasy behind his caustic tone.

"Watch your language," she reprimanded him, but there was no real anger in her voice. "School words only." She hesitated, before continuing. "Dean, I'm...concerned about you. The counselor - Mrs. Wells - can tell you more."

He didn't move, unconvinced. His dad hadn't prepped him for this exact situation, but he was pretty sure he knew what to do. He didn't like this at all. Fortunately, it had seemed, last night, like Dad's hunt was wrapping up, so they'd probably be out of here before whatever was going on with his teacher could get any worse.

"You get to miss class," she coaxed, holding the hall pass a little closer to him. He examined it warily, then took it, making a big show of only using the tips of his fingers. Missing class meant that he couldn't be yelled at for not doing assignments he wouldn't've done anyway.

He didn't see anyone at all in the halls until he reached the heavy wooden door on the other end of the school, with _Janina Wells - School Counselor_ engraved in its brassy plaque. He only knew where it was because he passed it every day on the way to lunch. Which was coming up soon - this lady'd better not keep him through it. Sammy would be terrified if Dean wasn't around to sit with him. He wouldn't know what had happened.

He hoped he could find someone else, and wouldn't sit alone, if Dean didn't show up. He knew that there were kids in Sammy's class who liked him and who he liked back. Maybe it would even be good for him to socialize with some of them.

That didn't mean he would be okay with basically being forced to abandon him, though.

Janina Wells was a severe-looking woman, but Dean wasn't intimidated. He'd seen a crazed werewolf, chained to a cement pylon under an overpass so Dad and a hunter friend of his could show him what one looked like before they killed it, and normal humans just didn't scare him anymore. He eyed the wide streaks of gray in her hair and the outdated motivational posters on the walls as he pulled out the plastic chair in front of her desk and sat. No, he wasn't intimidated. Even though she had a thick file in front of her that had to be his, and her desk - made of some glossy red wood - was big and ornate enough to dominate the tiny room.

Mrs. Wells smiled at him. He didn't smile back.

"Dean Winchester?" she asked, sounding like someone who already knew she was right.

"That's my name, don't wear it out," he replied, slouching in the chair. She smiled again. He didn't trust her.

"I'm very glad you came to see me, Dean," she said, leaning forward and folding her hands on top of the file.

"I'm not sure I had all that much of a choice," he said, folding his arms in an unconscious imitation of her.

"Well, still." She regarded him with careful, kind brown eyes. "Let's talk about school, Dean. How are you doing in class? Do you like it?"

"No, it's useless. And I suck at it. I'm failing, but I don't care."

"Why are you failing?"

"I never do my homework."

"Why not?"

He swallowed. _I didn't do my book report 'cause my dad needed my help tracking the pair of zombies he's after. I never finished my essay on the Panama Canal because I was learning how to stab something through the ribs and hit its heart. I lost my science worksheet because, one of those zombies? It was outside our motel room one night, and my dad was busy with the other one across town, and I had to keep my little brother from finding out what it was. I had to protect him, because he was so scared._ He shrugged, but didn't answer.

Mrs. Wells nodded, still looking at him. "And why do you think it's useless, what you're learning?"

"'Cause I don't need to know it. It's not important." He shrugged again. "I'm gonna do what my dad does when I grow up, and he's teaching me everything I gotta know for that."

"And your father is...?" She made a tiny "go on" motion with her hands.

"A - " _Hunter. He's a hero, he saves people. He kills monsters. And that's what I'm gonna do._ " - mechanic."

Mrs. Wells frowned down at his file. "It says here that your father - John - is the sole guardian of you and your younger brother. And you have no fixed address."

"Nope."

She looked back up at him and leaned forward again, quietly saying, "Dean, I would like it very much if you told me about your home life."

"What do you want to know? It's fine." Dean shrugged for a third time. "Dad's awesome, I've got Sammy. We're great."

"Did you know that Ms. Trevois has tried very hard - and failed - to get an audience with your father so they can discuss your grades?" she asked.

He almost asked who the hell she was talking about, before realizing that "Ms. Trevois" must be his teacher. He shrugged, yet again, before saying, "He's busy."

"How often is your father at home, Dean?"

"Enough," Dean answered shortly. He'd been warned, multiple times, about people who asked too many questions - especially these sorts of questions. His family might not be totally conventional, but he didn't need anyone taking him away from it.

"Okay." Mrs. Wells wrote something down. He couldn't help but wonder what it was. "I think we should talk about your brother now. Sam. He's in...first grade, right?"

"Second," Dean responded automatically. "His teacher's Mr. Zhang."

"How do you feel about him?" she asked, watching him. "Your brother, I mean."

"I...he's my little brother." He looked down at his lap. He didn't like the direction that this was going in. He couldn't help but remember what he had been thinking this morning, about how if, anyone ever found out about what he was doing with Sammy, they'd freak out.

"That doesn't really answer my question," she prompted gently.

"He's okay," Dean said stiffly, unfolding his arms to grip the sides of his seat. He worked at the solid plastic with his fingers.

"How much time do you spend with him?"

"Um. A lot, 'cause, y'know. I kind of have to." He gave her a tiny, tense smile.

"Do you ever leave Sam alone to do things with your friends?"

"No. No way." He shook his head. "I wouldn't do that. He'd be scared if he was all alone."

Mrs. Wells nodded again, and wrote something else down. "You two seem very close."

"Yep." He fidgeted, looking anywhere but at her. "Look. Lady. Can I go yet?"

She ignored him, tipping her head to the side just a little. "Dean..."

He wished she'd stop saying his name.

"Has anyone ever suggested to you that your relationship with your brother might not be...healthy?"

"Excuse me?" He blinked, and then looked at her with a scowl. "Why the hell'd you think that?" He swallowed, but managed to maintain his scowl. "He _needs _me. He's just...he's little, still. He needs me."

"I'm not sure he needs everything you're providing for him," she told him. Dean, slumped sullenly in his chair, raised an eyebrow, but didn't offer any other response. His heart beat faster, and he willed it to slow down. Not to give away his uneasiness. "Ms. Trevois - and other teachers - told me that they've seen you two kissing, and touching each other inappropriately, on several occasions."

Dean's internal organs froze into a solid lump of ice.

"I need you to explain the extent of your relationship with Sam to me," Mrs. Wells said. "When was the first time you touched him...like that?"

"You think I'm some kind of pervert," Dean said. It wasn't a question.

"No, I don't. I'm just concerned. I realize you two probably weren't raised normally - "

"So you're gonna blame my dad. 'Cause you think I've been giving my baby brother the bad touch," Dean interrupted, sitting up straight. He was angry now. And maybe that came from being afraid, but the ice inside him was rapidly melting "Oh, my _God._ I've been protecting him since he was six months old, I don't even know what I'd do without him, I'd _die _to keep him safe - how can you think I'd hurt him like that?"_  
_

"You obviously don't have ordinary boundaries," Mrs. Wells said calmly. "I understand you might not know it's wrong."

"Oh, I _know _it's wrong, but I'm not having sex with Sammy, no matter what you might think," Dean snapped. "Me and him - it's none of your business. Not at all, okay? We can handle ourselves. I can take care of him."

"I'm sure you can, Dean, but - "

"I don't want your help." He cut her off. "I don't _need _your help. Neither of us do, because we have each other." He swallowed. "I have never hurt him. Not ever. And I never, ever would. Whatever we're doing right now - _and it's not having sex - _it makes us happy, and that isn't really something we get a whole lot of." He stood up. "You don't get to take that away from us. From him. He deserves a whole lot better, but this is all I can give him right now."

Mrs. Wells didn't say anything as he turned and stalked to the door. But she spoke up when his hand was on the knob. "Dean, you think you're protecting your brother..."

"I know I'm protecting him." Dean shot a glance at her over his shoulder. "No one does it better than me, because there's no one in the world he means more to."

He left, fully expecting to be ordered back at any second, but that didn't happen. She let him go back to class. He knew Ms. Trevois's eyes were on him as he sat back down at his desk, but he refused to look at her. He hadn't liked her before. Now, he hated her. She had meddled. She had stuck her nose into all his private family stuff. She had...his throat tightened, just thinking about the possibility of what might have happened. She had tried to take Sammy away from him. He wouldn't have been able to bear that. Neither of them would've - and that made her a threat to his little brother.

Dean didn't see Sammy until after school, right after Dad failed to show and he resigned himself to walking home in the cold. He hadn't gone to find him at lunch, because he knew Sammy would run to him and hug him tightly, and he didn't want to deal with the consequences of that if some teacher saw. But, now, the second graders were being released, and his brother's big hazel eyes immediately fastened on him. With a tiny squeak of joy, he bolted over and threw his arms around him, burying his face in his chest. Dean hugged him back, suddenly not caring who saw them. It felt so unbelievably good to still have him, be able to hug him and hold him close. He shuddered at the thought of what almost happened...and what might still happen. Extremely aware of their surroundings, he let go of his little brother and stepped away from him. Thankfully, he didn't seem to think it was weird.

"Where were you at lunch?" Those were Sammy's first words to him, immediate and accusing as he tipped his round face up. Dean sighed.

"I...look, it's a long story. Tell you later, okay?"

He seemed to accept that. Maybe because it didn't seem to be bothering Dean, like the last thing he'd refused to talk to him about had. He moved closer to him again and took his hand (which Dean figured was okay to do in public, he saw lots of siblings holding hands), staying close in the river of kids leaving school, and looked around.

"Where's Dad?" he asked. His tone was perfectly even. Dean got the idea that he was already expecting the answer he was going to have to give him, before he even said a word. That somehow made him sad.

"Not here, obviously," he replied. "C'mon, Sammy. We can walk. Tell me if your feet get too cold, and I'll carry you."

"'Kay." Sammy obediently followed him, looking up. He gave him a tiny smile and squeezed Dean's large hand with his small one. "'M glad I have you."

"Goes both ways," Dean told him softly, a smile spreading across his face as Sammy nuzzled against him for a second. As he did that, the gesture full of love and affection, Dean happened to glance over his shoulder. He saw Ms. Trevois, herding kids onto their correct buses - and looking over at them. Again.

He nudged Sammy away from him, suddenly afraid. He didn't want her to see, he didn't want her to know - because this was so private, what they had and what he felt, and it was so special. And she'd already showed him that she was more than willing to destroy it. He knew Sammy was on the verge of sulking, because he'd basically pushed him away, but he could deal with that later. He just hoped to God that his teacher hadn't seen.

He would never know if she did or not, because his father would kill both zombies that night and they would leave in the morning. But he hoped she hadn't. He was scared, for himself and his brother. He wouldn't completely reject him again, because that would do way more harm than good, but they had to stop touching and kissing so much in public. No matter how much they both liked it.

He had to protect him.


End file.
